A Spider Sat Down Beside Her
by Prophetandprincess
Summary: Alexandra Jade Harper has returned to New York City for her senior year of college as a Biochemistry major at NYU. After a summer away from the city, she is ready to put the events of last fall behind her, steer clear of super-soldiers, actually anything with the word super in front of its title, and out of back alleys. That lasts about three days.
1. Chapter 1

"When's your interview?" Monica LeBlanc asked as she rolled over onto her stomach to watch Alexandra hold up two different tops over and over.

"Three, so I have to leave," Alex looked over her shoulder to her alarm clock, "now."

Alex had been trying to decide what to wear for almost a half an hour. It had been a very long time since she had worried about her appearance and what people thought about her. There had been a point last fall, for about a week, when that worry started to appear, but then the constant worry about being kidnapped and killed pushed that out of the way once again. Now that she thought about it, the last time she honestly cared about her appearance was probably when she was flower girl in her aunt's wedding. She was seven. In the end, she hated the dress, but the little cape she got to wear was pretty cool.

"Then put the red one on, like I told you to do an hour ago, and get the hell out of here." Monica jumped up, grabbed the navy blue blouse out of Alex's hands, and threw it onto the bed. "Also, add some lipstick."

"This is an interview, not a date." Alex feverishly undid the buttons and tugged the shirt on. "I'm supposed to look professional. Lipstick is not needed."

"Sweetheart, lipstick is always needed." Monica handed her a deep red from the dresser, a few shades darker than the blouse. "So wear it, go kick ass, and win or lose we're going to have drinks tonight."

"Says the woman who already has a paid internship lined up," Alex checked her hair again in the mirror as she applied the lipstick. New York City was unbearably hot for the end of August, but Alex had decided to keep her hair down to hide her earrings. She doubted that piercings going up both ears would to stop her from being hired, she didn't want to take that chance. She really needed a paid internship.

"What can I say, I'm just that good." Monica flipped her curls with a smile.

"I want to be just like you when I grow up." Alex clasped her hands in front of her and fluttered her eyelashes like a star struck little girl. It was only half an act.

"Growing up is so overrated, babe," Monica laughed as she grabbed her apartment keys from where she had thrown them when she came in. "Seriously though, don't sweat it. If Oscorp took me, Stark Industries would be stupid not to take you. If they don't, which won't happen, I could put a good word in for you with Oscorp. I mean, I'm sure they could use a biochemist if they want a chemical engineer."

"Thanks, Monica," Alex grabbed her purse on the way to the door. "Here's hoping that we'll just be working for rival companies instead of you groveling to get me a job."

"Only good vibes girl, only good vibes." Monica gave Alex a hug on the way toward the door. "Just knock on my door when you get back. I'll have shots waiting."

"You're a true friend," Alex laughed. She locked the apartment door behind the two of them, which felt a little weird. Usually they spent their free time in Monica's apartment, which was two floors down. There was better cable there, HBO, and a much bigger television.

"Damn straight," Monica said with a wave as she headed down the hall. "I'm going to take the stairs, get that cardio in."

"Like you need it," Alex called after Monica as she disappeared into the stairwell and Alex hit the down button for the elevator.

Alex took a few calming breaths to steady herself as she waited for the elevator. It was hard to decide whether it was better for her to be alone or with other people. The smallest sounds made her jump out of her skin and sent her heart rate through the roof. Alex prided herself on being fearless, but since last fall she was always a step away from being an anxious wreck. Then again, an evil organization kidnapped her, threatened to kill her over an alien artifact, then she put that artifact on and it tried to take over her brain. She thought that she was allowed to be a bit more paranoid about everything. Somehow, she had made it through the week with just some bruises and cuts to show for it. Well, that and some emotional and psychological scars that were not healing so well, but she tried not to think about that.

The ding of the elevator made her jump, and she shook her head as she entered and hit the button for the lobby. Once again, Alex counted her blessings that she was alive, in New York City, and had somewhere to live. Her lease hadn't been renewed for her last apartment. While it had added a good deal of stress into her life, Alex couldn't blame her previous landlord. In a span of a week her door had been destroyed, a bullet had been shot into the floor, and a dead body had been found in the building. None of it had been her fault, technically, but management had decided it was time for her to move on.

Fortunately, a person in Monica's building had moved out and she'd pulled some strings with her father to get Alex the studio apartment. The previous owner had lived there for over sixty years and hadn't let any updates be made to the apartment, so it wasn't too hard to convince Mr. LeBlanc to give Alex the same rent controlled rate. There were some major perks to knowing the heiress to a real estate empire, especially in New York City. Unfortunately, the building was on the other side of campus from her old place, which made working at her previous place of employment, Malone's restaurant, impossible. Alex needed this paid internship or she was going to be homeless.

Raymond, the day doorman, opened the front door and flagged down a taxi for her. Alex pushed her financial worries aside as she gave the address to Stark Tower. There was an interview she needed to focus on. When she had first gotten the information about the internship, she almost burnt it. The word superhero made her want to punch multiple people in the face. However, when she was at home on the farm over the summer, she gave the internship some serious thought. It was a once and a lifetime opportunity with two of the best scientists in the world. The least she could go is apply for the position.

"So, what do ya think about that Spider-Man fellow?" The cabbie asked, after swearing colorfully in Italian when he was cut off by another cab.

"Who?" Alex asked as New York slide by. She loved this city with all its flaws. The Midwest was good for a summer in the sun getting a wicked tan, working on the farm, and trying to get her thoughts in order. However, nothing compared to her love for New York and its gritty beauty.

"That vigilante wearing spandex and swinging from buildings. Apparently he stopped some chemical attack or something last year, though I think those lizard folk were a conspiracy. Spider-man takes down thugs and bank robbers. In my day, the mob took care of that sort of thing. Kept the neighborhoods safe. This one time…" the cabbie continued even though Alex stopped listening. Alex had become good at zoning out of conversations since last fall, sometimes when she didn't want to.

"I think he's probably going to get himself killed," Alex said truthfully when she realized that the cabbie was waiting for an answer, even though she didn't know much about this Spider-man guy.

Alex's phone played a couple bars from Surfin' Safari, which meant that Jake had texted her. The message was just a picture of a goat, tongue sticking out between yellow teeth. Three little dots appeared before a text wishing her luck from him and Billy Bob appeared. Then he added that she didn't need it and for her to call him when she was done.

Jake had been texting Alex at least once a day since she had returned to the city, like the dutiful big brother. He felt responsible for what had happened last year. One of his friends had told him about the trouble Alex was having with her ex-boyfriend Markus, but she had talked him out of coming up from Miami to see her. While Alex hadn't told her family the extent of what had happened, with superheroes and HYDRA, she had told them about Markus's multiple assault attempts. They had been supportive, but saying that they weren't happy when she came back to the city was the understatement of the century.

"Here ya are, Miss," the cabbie sighed as he looked back at her. Alex paid the fare and then looked up at Stark Tower, taking another steadying breath.

"If you can't beat them, join them," Alex whispered to herself as she headed into the large glass doors, straightening her spine. She was just coming for an interview, not getting involved with any superhero nonsense.

Alex felt as if she was going to throw up.

"Welcome to Stark Industries, how can I help you?" The receptionist asked with a bright smile. Alex knew she must look like a lost tourist, the way she was looking at everything as she crossed the lobby.

"Alexandra Harper. I have an interview with Doctor Banner at three." The words came out a little faster than she had intended. Alex took a deep breath. Push came to shove, she could always get a waitressing job or three to make ends meet. This was not life or death.

"Yes, I see you here on the schedule. I'll let him know that you're here. Please, fill out these forms while you wait. There are some seats by the windows," the receptionist smiled as she pushed a clipboard across the counter.

Alex didn't mention that the entire lobby was made of windows as she walked over to the small sitting area the receptionist had indicated. The forms were the normal nondisclosure agreements, basic personal information, and all those other forms you fill out at a job interview. There were also a few forms with so much legal jargon that they made her head swim. She hoped that she hadn't signed away her first born child or any internal organs.

"Miss Harper?" Alex jumped and turned to see a woman standing beside her chair. "Sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you. If you're ready, I can take you up to meet with Doctor Banner."

"Oh, should I give this paperwork to you?" Alex quickly got to her feet and extended the clipboard eagerly. This woman was tall, with brown hair pulled back into a bun without a hair out of place, and blue eyes. There was this air of authority around her.

"I'll take it." The woman smiled as she took the clipboard in one hand and offered the other. "I'm Maria Hill, it's a pleasure to meet you."

"I'm Alex, which you already know," Alex shook her head and told herself not to be so stupid. "It's nice to meet you."

"Likewise, if you'll follow me." Maria Hill started across the lobby without waiting, her heels tapping satisfyingly on the floor.

Alex had heard of Maria Hill the fall before. Steve had called on an Agent Hill to take care of a few things for him, like setting up her safe house. While there was no way of knowing that this was the same person, she looked as if she was a former S.H.I.E.L.D agent. Alex also didn't know how much about last fall that Hill was aware of. It had never occurred to her to ask Steve. She had a lot more on her mind, and he wasn't exactly easy to get ahold of.

"So what do you do here?" Alex asked as they waited for the elevator, too nervous to stay quiet. It wasn't like being quiet had ever been Alex's strong suit.

"I'm a jack of all trades," Maria smiled as the elevator door opened and they entered. "I keep an eye on thing for Mr. Stark in areas of security and intelligence here at the tower as well as working with the Avengers from time to time. I go wherever I'm needed."

"Oh," Alex looked at the many elevator buttons, telling herself not to say anything else. "No offense, but you seem a little too important to be taking me to an interview. Should I be worried?"

It was meant to be a joke, but there was a slight waver in Alex's voice. Her first impression of Maria Hill was that she was not a woman to be crossed. There was this sense of confidence and put togetherness that Alex didn't think she would ever be able to achieve. Why would someone like this be taking her to an interview?

"Actually, I volunteered to take you to up," Hill explained. "It is rare that Steve asks me to set up a safe house, I loved your apartment by the way, and he was rather vague about the details. I figured if I got eyes on you, I might be better able to assess the situation."

"What's your assessment?" Alex didn't know what else to say.

"You aren't what I was expecting," was the short reply.

Exactly how vague had Steve been? Obviously he wouldn't have said anything about James, but what about HYDRA and the bracelet? Steve had called for agents to come to the school to save her life and others watching her apartment, so there was a good chance that Hill knew about HYDRA. It would have been really helpful if Steve had given her some sort of heads up, she knew that he had a cell phone and had learned to use it since defrosting.

"What were you expecting?" Alex asked as the doors slid open.

"Honestly? I'm not exactly sure, but it wasn't you." Maria laughed and Alex wasn't exactly sure how to take that comment. "If you're hired, I'll take you through orientation and run the background checks. There is a chance of a polygraph test, depending on what clearance level you are designated, just so you're aware."

Before Alex could become too anxious about the idea of taking a polygraph test, Maria was walking down the hallway. She stopped at the second office on the right and knocked lightly on the glass door.

"Dr. Banner, your interview candidate is here." Maria gave Alex one last smile before she started down the hallway. "Good luck."

"Thank you," Alex called after her before turning to look at Doctor Banner. He was a leader in the Biochemistry field, but she really hadn't seen a lot of pictures of him when he wasn't very large, very green, and very angry. Logically she knew that the angry green guy wasn't going to be interviewing her, but for some reason that was who she had expected to see in the office.

"Bruce Banner, it's a pleasure to meet you." He extended his hand, sliding his glasses off with the other hand. Apparently when he was less green and angry, Dr. Banner was only about an inch taller than she was with wavy brown hair and a sweet, though nervous, smile.

"The pleasure is all mine," Alex smiled as she took his hand.

Doctor Banner motioned for Alex to take a seat on the other side of the desk before he resumed his chair. The fact that he was a bit nervous helped calm Alex. While he shuffled some things around on his desk, Alex looked around the office. It was mostly glass, a whole wall of windows and another glass wall that looked into a small lab. Banner's personal touches, wooden shelves filled with items from all over the world and a lovely Persian rug under the desk, stopped the office from feeling sterile. Those touches along with the startling number of plants, which also made the room smell fantastic, helped relax Alex even more.

"I've had a look at your resume and it's impressive, though I have to admit that you're younger than most of the applicants. Usually they are Master or PhD candidates." Dr. Banner slid his glasses back on as he looked through the folder in front of him. "A 3.85 GPA, valedictorian of her high school class, and impressive undergraduate research last year, co-authoring a few papers with your professors."

"I like to keep busy and, to be perfectly honest, I was just a research assistant on a couple of those papers." Alex shrugged, trying not to blush.

It was weird to have one of the most accomplished scientists in the field sit there and read off her accomplishments. What made it more awkward was that her memory of the spring semester resembled Swiss cheese. She had thrown herself into a lot of projects, anything to keep her mind off everything, and not sleeping made it so the particulars of those projects were lost on her. Might not be a bad idea to pull a couple of those papers out and see what the hell she had spent those sleepless nights on.

"You also have a few arrests on your record, though no charges were ever pressed. You always seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time." Banner looked at her over his glasses and smirked. "Known to hang out with a number of criminal elements, though you seem to have been avoiding them for about a year. Last contact with the police was in regards to an assault. You seem to have very different sides to you, Miss Harper."

"Don't we all?" Alex tilted her head and let an eyebrow rise.

Doctor Banner looked a little taken aback, but then let out a small laugh. Once again his glasses came off before he leaned back in the chair. One of the ear pieces went into his mouth as he studied her for a moment. Alex attempted not to fidget.

"I'm going to be honest with you, all these papers are pretty much meaningless." Banner flipped the folder closed and put his glasses on the desk. "What matters to me is why you want to work here."

"Who doesn't want to work here?" It was a question that was asked at every job interview and Alex had prepared for it. Yet, somehow, her carefully constructed answer was lost somewhere in her gray matter. So, she just said the first thing that came to mind. Because that never ended badly.

"What I meant is that you're a biochemist, it would make a lot more sense for you to go to a drug company, or Oscorp. Why Stark Industries? We are known more for clean energy and the Avengers, why apply here?" Banner refined his question, though there was still a small quirk on his lips.

"You're a biochemist and you're here," Alex pointed out, but she knew that it wasn't that great of an answer. "To start with, I didn't think that Stark Industries was the right fit, but a friend gave me the information so I kept it. Then I heard about the medical division and my friend seemed to think that I could do a lot of good here. Being on the ground floor of something, something that is led by Bruce Banner and using the technology of Tony Stark, sounded exciting. Plus, it's paid and will look great on my resume."

It was not a refined or pretty speech, but since Alex had already started the trend of being honest she figured there was no reason not to keep it up. There didn't seem to be any reason to lie to Dr. Banner, he seemed to know everything about her anyway. Maria Hill had probably already run all those background checks she mentioned in the elevator.

"You're honest, I'll give you that," Dr. Banner smiled. "Let me tell you a little bit about what I want to do. There's a lot going on in the world, and most of it isn't great. I want to use this lab, and the resources, to do some of the good that isn't seen in the world right now. During this internship you'll be working on vaccines and other medical advancements that can make life easier, things that can save lives. No political pressure to not find the cures to pad corporate pockets. Tony, and Ms. Potts, want this company to be known for more than weapon production of the past and the Avengers. They want to move away from destruction and toward hope."

"It's true that the company doesn't exactly have a squeaky clean reputation," Alex agreed as she attempted to hide her excitement. Everything that Dr. Banner mentioned was exactly what she wanted to do with her degree. What she wanted to do with the rest of her life. No drug companies that were only interested in profits, just focusing on saving lives. To do something more. To help people.

"Yet, you're still interested in working here?" Banner laughed a little.

"Well, I don't have a squeaky clean reputation either, as you know," Alex waved to the folder on his desk. "I think it could be a perfect match."

"Let me show you around the lab," Banner got to his feet, sliding his glasses back on. "If you still feel that way after you get a look at the place, we'll talk more."

The real interview took place during the tour, Dr. Banner asking her questions about the equipment in the lab and if she was familiar with them. There were some things that she didn't know how to use, or what they even were, but she thought she did alright during the impromptu test. Banner corrected her when she got something wrong and seemed happy to answer any of the questions she had. They also got into a rather animated conversation about transcription and RNA processing.

"So, do you have any other questions for me or about me?" Dr. Banner seemed nervous again when they finally got back to his office and resumed their seats. "You've done well at hiding your interest so far, but I'm sure that you have questions about…about the Hulk. Almost everyone does. Usually they revolve around that personal safety."

Alex didn't respond right away, knowing that she had to pick her words carefully. Did she have concerns about the Hulk? Anyone without a death wish would have concerns about a creature that can rip apart one of New York's boroughs with little effort. She had seen the news reports about what he had done to Harlem, and then during the Battle of New York, and the rebuilding work was still continuing. This office, and most of Stark Tower, was glass and if Dr. Banner changed she would be in a world of trouble. Then again, it really wouldn't matter where she was if he changed, she would be in a world of trouble.

"You've seen my interesting history," Alex said with a smile, deciding once again to be honest. "I can't seem to stay away from trouble, no matter the type. However, I'm also pretty good at keeping myself alive. I can take care of myself, no matter the threat."

Dr. Banner looked at her for a moment, studying her facial expression, weighing her words. After a deep breath, he slid his glasses off and looked out the windows. Alex played with the hem of her skirt, praying that it was the right answer. She might not want anything to do with superheroes, or HYDRA, or anything like that, but she wanted this internship. Badly. It wasn't just the need for money, it was a want. During the interview, Dr. Banner had spoken and had sparked so many ideas, and he was one of the leaders in biochemistry. To learn from him would do nothing but help her.

"Well, I think that's everything I need, Miss Harper." Dr. Banner got to his feet abruptly, sliding his glasses back on.

"Oh," Alex got to her feet as well and followed him to the door. "You don't have any other questions for me?"

"Well, since you asked, I do have one. It's a personal question, though." Dr. Banner held the door for her to move out into the hallway.

"That's fine…" Alex had no idea what he would want to know about her personal life. Besides, it seemed to have her whole life on that folder on his desk. He probably knew more about her than she knew about herself.

"How do you know Steve Rogers?" He asked as they made their way toward the elevator.

"That seems to be the question of the day," Alex sighed, trying not to fall out of her heels in shock. Why hadn't she thought that everyone was going to ask about what happened last fall? Then again, she hadn't thought Steve would have mentioned her to all the Avengers. However, it seemed like she was the gossip of the tower.

Alex knew that telling the truth was out of the question. Explaining that she met Steve in an alley while she was harboring his amnesiac best friend, who was also a hundred years old, in her apartment. Or that Steve had a hell of a time keeping her alive and safe from HYDRA, though she really didn't help him, while agents were looking for an alien artifact that could control minds. Or that she had put that bracelet on and used it to control a HYDRA agent's mind and wasn't sure if that had any lasting effects on her as it tried to take over her mind. There was also the fact that she spent some time in a S.H.I.E.L.D. safe house, and also caused a whole assault on NYU. Why couldn't Steve give her a heads up about this?

"Steve would come into the restaurant where I used to work. I recognized him, it's kind of hard not to, and we got to talking. He found out what my major was and passed along the information for the internship. It's nothing all that exciting," Alex explained. Eventually she was going to have to tell Steve all these lies so that they wouldn't get caught by someone. Then they were going to have a long talk about him gossiping about her to everyone in the tower.

"He speaks very highly of you," Dr. Banner explained as he pressed the down button. "He was very excited when he heard that you were coming in for an interview. I'm guessing you hadn't mentioned it to him."

"I don't mean to offend you, but I hope you wouldn't give me this position just because Mr. Rogers gave me the information. I would be truly honored to have an opportunity here, but if you don't think I'm qualified for the position, give it to someone else." Alex wanted the job more than she had wanted anything since last fall, but she wasn't going to take a pity position. Her pride would never let her do that. Sometimes she hated that she still had pride.

"I'm not offended and I didn't mean to offend you," Dr. Banner said quickly as they walked into the elevator. "I was just interested in how you knew each other. He was…very impressed by you."

"What did he say?" Alex was trying to get all the information so that her own lies would have the ring of truth. Also, she was interested in what Steve said about her when she wasn't around. After everything, Steve cursing her name would probably be the most appropriate.

"Not much, just that you were one of the brightest and most inquisitive people that he had ever met, which is what got us all interested," Dr. Banner shrugged. "He really isn't known for meeting girls, let alone talking with them. Some of the group have been bothering him more than others about who you are. It's probably why he's been gone so much lately, working on something with his friend Sam."

Sam had to be Sam Wilson, and their project was trying to track down James. As always, the thought of James made her heart ache. Apparently, Steve was still playing that close to his chest, only having those few people involved as his confidants. She had barely heard from either Steve or Sam over the summer when she was out of the city. It might have been because it wasn't something that they wanted to discuss over the phone because you never know when someone was listening. Even if they had called, she had spent long hours out in the fields with her father and taking runs at all hours of the day.

Alex pushed that to the back of her mind and tried to think of something to say as they rapidly descended to the lobby. Honestly, she had no idea how well she did during the interview. She hadn't been prepared for a lot of the questions and for the ones she was prepared for, she didn't answer them as she had planned. The one thing she could say is that she had been honest, for better or worse. Still, that abrupt end to the interview made her nervous.

"Doctor Banner," a computerized voice with a slight accent echoed through the elevator, making Alex jump.

"Yes, Jarvis?" Dr. Banner shot Alex an apologetic smile.

"Mr. Stark would like you to come to his lab when you are finished with the interview. There is something that he would like to discuss in regards to Veronica."

"Thank you, Jarvis. Tell him I will be up in a minute."

Alex looked out of the corner of her eye at Dr. Banner, wanting to ask who Jarvis was. There were thousands of possible things that Tony Stark would want to talk to Dr. Banner about, apparently about someone named Veronica. Some of them were very farfetched, but then she remembered that Tony Stark flew around in a metal suit that shot lasers he had invented. Was anything farfetched in this place? Veronica could be a person or a code name for something.

"I guess I should introduce you to Jarvis, since you kind of just met him. He's the A.I. system here at the tower," Dr. Banner said with a smile. "Jarvis, this is Alexandra Harper, she was interviewing for one of the internship positions."

"I did see it on your calendar. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Harper." The voice came back, almost sounding amused.

"Uh…Likewise. Alex or A.J. is fine," Alex didn't know what else to say. She was having a conversation with a talking A.I. system. What the hell was this, 2001 Space Odyssey? That thought sent a small chill down her spine as they were plummeting toward the ground in a glass elevator. She really hoped that Jarvis was a lot nicer than Hal.

The elevator reached the lobby without incident and the doors swooshed open. This was Alex's last chance to say something to impress Dr. Banner. She really, really, wanted this internship, but now she wanted Dr. Banner to like her as well.

"I want to thank you so much for this opportunity to interview for the position. I know that I'm younger than who you usually look for, and don't have the credentials that you want, but I would be so willing to learn. Everything you've told me about this position is what I want to do with my degree. I just…I wanted you to know that." Alex stopped rambling before she said something truly embarrassing and held her hand out. "Thank you, again."

"It was a pleasure to meet you," Dr. Banner took the hand he offered her and shook it.

Alex stepped out of the elevator and started across the lobby, her stomach in knots. That was that. 'It was a pleasure to meet you' doesn't sound like 'you're hired.' It sounded like someone sending an impersonal email thanking you for your time, but they are moving on to other candidates. The thought of waiting tables again after being through the lab was depressing.

"Oh, Miss Harper," Dr. Banner said he put his hand in front of the elevator door to stop it from closing.

"Yes, Dr. Banner?" Alex hoped she hadn't dropped something or had something on her skirt. Maybe he was going to tell her right then that he wasn't interested.

"See you on Monday for orientation," Dr. Banner said with a wide smile before he let the doors closed.


	2. Chapter 2

"Girl, I told you that it was going to be fine!" Monica threw her arm over Alex's shoulder, laughing. She hadn't even let Alex take her heels off before taking the first shot of Fireball and Rumchata, now they were on their second and Alex was finally starting to relax.

"I just," Alex was laughing and shaking her head, "I met Doctor Banner. I'm going to work for Bruce fucking Banner!"

Alex couldn't remember the last time she was this happy. Then she did, that morning she woke up with James beside her in bed, writing away in a notebook he had commandeered from her coffee table. The room smelled of coffee, and warm morning sun was streaming through the window. That image dampened her excitement a little, her heart constricting painfully in her chest, and the smile slipped from her face.

"Oh, no. I know that look," Monica grabbed Alex's shot glass and started to pour another shot. "You get that look whenever you think about that mystery man that broke your heart last year. We're not thinking about him, we're celebrating! And tonight we're going out and getting you a hot piece of ass to forget all about…whoever he is. Now, drink!"

Alex dutifully took the shot, mostly because she knew Monica wouldn't take no for an answer. Monica had been a better friend that she deserved, especially after the half-assed excuses she gave for the numerous injuries she suffered the year before. While she had exaggerated about how much of a villain Markus was, which if an evil organization wasn't involved would be impossible, there had been a lot she just chose not to tell her. Instead of just being a drug addict, alcoholic, attempted rapist, he was all that as well as a low level member of the mob within the lie. It explained why a number of scary men had accosted Alex when she was with Monica. Clint Barton, who had been her handler, turned into an undercover cop since Monica had seen him on a few occasions.

Where Alex got into trouble was explaining why she was completely heartbroken at the end of that week. In the end, James turned into a Marine that had been passing by the alley when Markus attacked her and saved Alex's life. He was only in the city for a week and Alex hadn't heard from him again. Monica, while she believed the story, was not impressed with this fictional Marine, saying he was an asshole for not dating her with the advances in technology assisting long distance relationships. Alex didn't argue because he didn't exist.

"Now," Monica grabbed the empty shot glass and dropped them both into the sink, "you go get ready. We're going clubbing."

"I don't know…" It had been some time since Alex had gone clubbing and she really didn't feel up to it after thinking about James and Markus. "I probably should get everything taken care of for classes on Monday."

"No, no, no," Monica pushed Alex toward the door of her apartment, scooping up Alex's purse as she went. "You're coming out with me tonight. I don't care if I drag you out in a nightgown and pink bunny slippers, you're going out!"

"Alright, alright," Alex laughed as Monica pushed the purse into her chest. "Want to head out around nine?"

"Sounds good. And we're going to make a night of it, so maybe make some coffee or something." Monica winked before closing her door.

Alex smiled at the door before she started up the two flights of stairs up to her place. Monica was right, she usually was, Alex needed to go out and be who she used to be. Well, maybe not the criminal side of things or puking in back alleys, but taking life by the horns. Living fearlessly. James wasn't coming back, which meant that she wasn't in any danger, she needed to move past him and start living life. Yet, there was exhaustion settling on her as she got to her front door. Maybe coffee wouldn't be a bad idea.

Yet, in the apartment, there was this nervousness that wouldn't let her sit down. After stripping out of her clothes, Alex decided to call her brother. They didn't talk on the phone much, but he had been trying to keep better tabs on her and probably wanted to know how the interview went. So, she raked her hair up into a ponytail and hit his contact picture.

"Lexie, to what do I owe this pleasure?" Jake asked as he answered the phone.

"Can't I call and talk to my brother without having a reason?" Alex smiled as she flopped down on the couch and looked up at the ceiling.

This is what it was like for her and Jake, bantering and being annoying, normal sibling stuff. In person, their conversations were all smiles and laughter, but talking over the phone usually ended in an argument. Alex really didn't know what the difference was, but there was something about being on the phone that brought out all their annoying qualities.

"You can, but you never do," Jake laughed.

Alex heard him walking through his condo and the sound of his balcony door sliding open. Jake had been extremely lucky to get a condo in Miami, overlooking the ocean, without having to pay an arm and a leg. She had gone down to visit him over the summer and while the place was small and outdated, you really couldn't beat the view.

"I just wanted to tell you how the interview went." Alex's small apartment was extremely hot, even with all the windows open, and she was jealous of him standing there enjoying the ocean breeze. There wasn't a single wisp of air moving through New York that day and the hazy heat was oppressive. Even the street sounds weren't making their way up to her.

"Well, don't leave me in suspense," Jake laughed, talking louder to be heard over the breeze causing static on the line.

"You are talking to the newest intern of Stark Industries, located at Stark Tower." Alex felt herself smiling like an idiot just saying those words. Her smile started to fall when Jake was silent.

"You're not happy." Alex looked up at the ceiling so that she wouldn't start crying and tried not to sound upset. She thought he would be happy that she was happy again, that she wasn't moping around, sleeping at all hours of the day, and not sleeping all hours of the night. Things were finally looking up, why couldn't he be happy for her?

"I…I'm extremely proud of you, and I'm happy that you're happy. It's just…" Jake sighed and Alex could see him tugging at his hair, mulling over the right thing to say. "I didn't know where your interview was. I'm worried about you being in that tower. It gets blown up or at least attacked once a year."

"I'm sure they have evacuation procedures for that sort of thing," Alex laughed, feeling some of her disappointment lifting. Jake was just being protective and as annoying as that was, it showed that he cared. "Besides, I'm going to be in the lab like cleaning test tubes. Not a lot of danger there, don't worry about me."

"Last time that you told me not to worry, you were beat to hell and attacked by a goddamn madman. A madman that you apparently dated at some point," Jake's voice was hard and his temper was rising.

"And you wonder why I didn't want to tell you what was happening? You keep acting like it's my fault Markus was fucking scum." Alex once again applauded her decision not to tell her family about James. They probably would have locked her in the barn to keep her from coming back to New York. "Jacob, I know you worry and I appreciate it, but I can take care of myself."

"That remains to be seen." Alex itched to hang up the phone. This is why she texted him, it was easier to ignore the message until she had calmed down enough to answer. She had even had Monica text back for her a few times, which in itself was a hilarious disaster. She had less patience than Alex did.

Alex knew that he was pulling at his beard equally upset. The beard was something he had decided to grow since moving to Miami. He thought it fit his new surfer persona, even though he was awful at surfing. Their mother had just looked at him for a few seconds the first time he came home with it, long enough to make him squirm, before she went back to peeling potatoes. The beard was never mentioned, but that look was enough. Grace Harper was never one to keep her opinions to herself, even if she never said a word.

"I'm sorry, Lexie," Jake said after a few minutes. "You're really excited about this and I am happy for you. I don't want to fight every time we talk. We used to be best friends, remember?"

"We also used to fight over the last bit of Trix cereal, I didn't tell you I stole your Captain America trading cards, and I didn't talk to you for three weeks when you broke my Backstreet Boys CD," Alex said with a laugh. "We aren't that different now than we were back then, Jake."

"We should do some crazy sibling bonding thing, like go on a cross-country road trip or backpacking through Asia or something," there was a smile in Jake's voice.

"Alright, you finance the whole thing and explain to mom why I'm dropping out of college during my senior year, and I'm game," Alex laughed. That was the difference between Alex and Jake. Jake dreamed crazy things, but never did them. Alex never thought anything through and just did them.

"Okay, maybe something a little less drastic. I would hate for mom to go to jail for murdering me. Dad couldn't take care of the farm by himself," Jake laughed.

"You're working on the assumption that mom would be caught."

"How about I come up and see you this year instead? We'll catch something on Broadway or go to the zoo or something," Jake offered.

"Well, you better come up here soon or it will be too cold for your delicate Miami skin," Alex said around a yawn. She had three shots and four hours of sleep the night before, it was starting to catch up with her.

"Hey, we're Midwest kids, we're from hardy stock. I can take a bit of snow. However, it sounds like I'm keeping you from a nap so I'll let you go." Jake's voice was once again breezy and carefree.

"Yeah, I'm going out with a friend to celebrate so I should get going," Alex agreed as she rolled onto her side. Jake was silent on the other end of the line for a few seconds before exhaling loudly.

"Promise me you will be careful and not do anything stupid," Jake said.

"Jake, I'm going out with someone and it's not the first time I've gone out. Besides, safety is my middle name," Alex laughed.

"Alexandra Safety Harper, and all this time I've missed the opportunity to call you Ash," Jake laughed. "Get some sleep, be safe, and text me when you get in tonight."

"Goodbye Jake," Alex let the exasperation leak into her voice before hanging up.  
Alex knew that she should get into the shower, breathing was causing her to sweat. However, she drifted off to sleep before she got the motivation to move.  
Alex was walking through the deserted hallways of the science building. She didn't have any of her class materials with her and she was late. Sweat was pouring off her as she headed for the stairwell, walking quickly. The stairwell smelled like iron and as she put her hand on the railing, her hand came back sticky. It was covered in blood.

Fear curled in her stomach as she continued up the stairs and went through the only door. The smell of death smacked her in the face as she walked into the hallway, blood splattered on the walls and covering the floors. Alex felt her stomach churn and prayed that she wouldn't see him at the end of the hallway. She didn't want to turn the corner, but her feet kept moving one in front of the other. Her heart was beating painfully in her chest.

James stood at the end of the hallway, but he was dressed as the Winter Soldier, an outfit that she had never seen personally. However, the internet was buzzing with Winter Soldier speculation and sightings after what happened in D.C. Alex knew that she shouldn't look at that type of stuff, but she couldn't help herself. It was her obsession, to see him, even if it was just a fuzzy aerial shot that could be anyone; even if it caused her more heartache.

He turned his head to look at her when she was halfway down the hallway, blue eyes studying her. Blood covered his hands and arms, dripping from his fingers, glistening on his black armor, and splattered on his face. There was carnage all around him, splattering the walls and windows, but his eyes were alive. They weren't the dull blue that belonged to the killer, they were clear and scared.

"Alex?" His voice was raw, like he had been screaming. He looked down at his hands, as if they were foreign to him, before looking back up. The terror and confusion in his eyes made Alex's heart constrict. She tried to speak, but no words came out. Instead, she just kept walking forward, the blood splattering up onto her legs with each step.

When they were just a few feet from each other, Alex was finally about to stop. They stared at one another. Longing, fear, and love mixing in her chest to the point that she couldn't breathe. After almost a year of being apart with nothing but dreams of him, she was still madly in love with him. It was equal parts infuriating and pathetic.

Her body moved when she commanded it this time and she rested her hand against his cheek. A little bit of the pressure in her chest was relieved at the feeling of his stubble against her fingers, ignoring the blood that was also there. He was there, real, warm, and she felt her heart breaking. He needed someone to comfort him, to explain to him that this wasn't his fault. God, she missed him so much.

James said something in Russian, leaning into her hand, and tears prickled in her eyes. The words kept flowing from his mouth, quickly and passionately, his voice getting louder. Alex rubbed her thumb against his cheek, but she couldn't find any words. She wasn't even able to tell him that it was alright, that she was there, that they would figure everything out.

Then, he stopped speaking, his eyes suddenly flat and dull. Before Alex could move, his metal hand was around her throat and the fingers tightened to the point that she couldn't breathe. She fought against him, scratching at his face, but to no effect. She felt the life leeching out of her body as her lungs burned for air.

Alex woke with a start, drenched in sweat and panting like she had run a marathon. Shadows had crept into the corners of her apartment and the sound of rush hour traffic was only broken by the sounds of doors opening and closing in the building. There was still the feeling of cold metal against her throat as her fingers gently rubbed her wrist. There always seemed to be a throb in her wrist after a nightmare, right where the alien bracelet had dug into her skin, like some sort of phantom pain. At least this time she hadn't woken up screaming.

"Well," Alex said as she got up and started stripping off her sweat-stained clothes for the second time that day and headed to the bathroom. "That was different."

She had been having nightmares almost nightly, but that was the first time for that particular scenario. The more common ones were Alex trying to stop blood from leaking out of someone's chest or accidentally killing someone she loved. Other times it was watching James get killed. This was the first time he had attacked her.

In the shower, Alex tried to figure out what the dream meant. She thought Freud was an absolute quack, like the dude was seriously obsessed with penises, but she could get behind the idea that dreams were a window into the subconscious. Whether it was your subconscious processing what you had seen that day for proper coding or because your subconscious drop kicked the conscious out of the way for a while, dreams meant something. It just so happened that her mind was still ridiculously fucked up. She didn't need a psychologist to figure that out.

Alex slid on her silk robe when she was done with her shower before going to the kitchen and making herself a hot pocket. Never, ever go clubbing on an empty stomach. She learned that her first week in the city when she made out with some random guy, actually a few random men, and then threw up all the way back to her dorm room, where she spent the night on the bathroom floor. While munching on the hot pocket, she scrolled through hairstyles and makeup on Pinterest to figure out her look for that night.

In the end, she braided some of her hair and pulled it all back into a high ponytail. It was simple and kept her hair off her neck since it felt like ninety degrees even though the sun was setting. The makeup was smoky with silver sparkles and deep red lipstick. Then she slipped on her dress, which was equally red and sparkly, cut low in the back and barely covered her ass. It did cover her new tattoo, which was still healing and looked red and angry.

At nine, she slipped on her six inch sparkly red heels and unplugged her phone from the charger. It was unlike Monica not to be punctual and Alex wondered if maybe she had fallen asleep. Now that she was all done up, Alex was ready to go out; she needed to go out.

Alex sent Monica a text message, turning on the bedside lamp so when she stumbled in later that night she could see. At nine fifteen Alex grabbed her keys and phone, threw them in her red clutch, and headed to Monica's apartment. Bass was making the floorboards shake outside the door and it took a few seconds of very hard knocks before the door was thrown open. Monica was standing there, eyeliner in hand, looking frazzled.

"Sorry, I'm having a bit of a makeup emergency," Monica pushed the door further open to let Alex in.

"Don't worry about it, we've all been there," Alex smiled as she entered the apartment. "How do I look?"

"Like you're ready to break some hearts," Monica laughed as Alex gave her a twirl. "Like, damn girl! All of that tan skin is going to drive those pathetic men crazy. Who knew vitamin D would have the added benefit of you getting some D?"

"As my friends would say, eres deslumbrante," A male voice said.  
Alex spun around to see a man sitting on the couch, drink in hand. He was attractive, brown Afro, brown skin, and greenish grey eyes. She shot a glance at Monica before giving him a little finger wave. He gave her a smile in return.

"Don't look so surprised, you met Gabe at the mixer last year," Monica said as she started heading toward the bathroom, but sighed at Alex's blank stare. "Gabriel Callaghan, this is Alexandra Harper, but she goes by Alex or A.J. Alex, Gabe."

"Callaghan?" Alex tilted her head to the side. It was a very Irish last name for someone who didn't look very Irish.

"My grandfather was Irish, grandmother was Puerto Rican, then my dad married my mother, who emigrated from Cuba when you did that sort of thing," Gabriel smiled as he got up to recycle his beer bottle. He was tall, about six foot three if Alex had to guess, but there was something completely laid back about everything he did.

"I didn't mean to offend or anything," Alex said quickly. "You don't need to explain your name to me, or anything really. Hell, my mother named me Alexandra Jade Harper, like I was going to be an empress or something."

"I'm not offended by my heritage," Gabriel gave her an easy, infectious smile before he resumed his seat on the couch. "And names are important, if any sort of folklore is to be believed."

There was just this aura around Gabe that made Alex think it would be hard to offend him. Either he had learned to have a thick skin or he was naturally an understanding person. Then again, it was easy to see his muscles through the white silk shirt he was wearing, unbuttoned to show a simple gold cross and a hint of his pecs, so that might detract from people purposely offending him.

"What did you say earlier? My Spanish is basically nonexistent," Alex asked as she poured herself a vodka and cranberry juice.

"Basically, you're dazzling. Now, I hope that you're not offended," Gabriel laughed.

"An attractive man calling me stunning, why would I be offended?" Alex laughed as she perched on the edge of Monica's arm chair. "Besides it was a very respectful compliment."

Alex wasn't just being personable, Gabriel was attractive. The simple outfit of white shirt and black pants with his beautiful dark skin and green eyes was stunning.

"You're going to be just as fun as Monica promised. We didn't have much of a chance to talk the last time we met," Gabriel laughed. "Usually I avoid the club scene, but Monica said that we were all celebrating getting new jobs and it wasn't a party if it was just you and her."

"Oh, did you get an internship as well?" Alex asked. "I'm going to be completely honest, I don't remember meeting you before."

"A job, actually. I graduated last spring and just got hired." He smiled before raising his voice so Monica could hear him over the music. "I'll try not be offended that Monica doesn't talk about me more often."

"Excuse me, that I didn't sing your praises from the rooftops," Monica laughed as she reappeared. "And I do mention you. It's just that Alex here has a worse memory than my ninety year old grandmother. Now that I am somewhat presentable, let's get going."

"As if you're ever not presentable," Alex laughed as she downed her drink. "You look good even when we finish working out. It isn't fair."

"Oh stop," Monica rolled her eyes, plucking Alex's drink out of her hand and finishing it. Monica was in a short teal halter dress with her curly hair pulled back away from her face and tucked a white flower behind her ear. That was accompanied by white wedges and enough rings and necklaces that she could open her own jewelry store, but as always, Monica made it work. The same could be said for the teal eyeshadow and dark lipstick.

"You do look lovely, querida," Gabe smiled as he got to his feet. "A terrible influence, but lovely all the same."

"I'm an excellent influence." Monica slipped her arm through his, giving him a peck on the cheek. "You wouldn't have passed philosophy without me."

"You talked to me all through class and then had me take shots while we wrote the papers," Gabriel pointed out as Monica slipped her free arm through Alex's. "You're a regular Belladonna lily. Beautiful and poisonous."

"Hey, that was the best grade on a paper you've gotten!" The group made their way out of the apartment and toward the elevator.

"Are you a botanist?" Alex asked while they waited for the elevator. The lapses in Alex's memory last year made it so she couldn't remember anything about Gabriel. Bless Monica for being so patient with her last year or she would have become more of a recluse.

"No, my mother owns a florist shop and when I was younger, I would have to stay in the back room after school while she worked. I learned about all the different species, whether I wanted to or not." Gabriel explained as they piled onto the elevator. "Not that she had Belladonnas, but there were these books that I would look at when bored."

"Gabriel is a hacker and he gets paid for it," Monica laughed.

"No, I'm in cyber security," Gabriel corrected with a smile. "That means I'm better than a hacker. I figure out what a hacker is going to do and then take measures to stop it."

"He's a hacker," Monica whispered to Alex, across Gabriel.

Gabriel muttered something under his breath in Spanish, but he was smiling. Alex felt a smile spread across her face as Monica started to bicker with him. While she might not have expected Gabriel to be there, she was glad he was. It had been a long time since she had felt this sense of warmth and togetherness in a group. This feeling of happiness.

"Have a nice night, Miss Harper and Miss LeBlanc," Henry, the night doorman said, as they passed through the lobby.

"You too," they called in unison before the humidity smacked them in the face as they stepped into August heat. Alex felt her hair frizz instantly. The only comfort she had was that it was going to be dark in the club and her skirt was so short that no one would be looking at her hair.

"Where are we even going?" Alex asked as Gabriel hailed a cab for them.

"I got us on the list at the Marquee and my father's approval to use his credit card. We're living in style tonight," Monica laughed.

The Marquee was one of the better known nightclubs in New York City and one that Alex had never gone to due to the fact that it was way out of her price range. Most of her haunts while she was a party girl in freshman year had no guest lists, fire codes were mere guidelines, and a piece of cardboard passed as an ID. They were hot, sticky, dark, and grimy, but they had a certain charm. The alcohol was also cheap.

"We got sidetracked, I never got to say congratulations on being hired. Where are you working?" Alex asked as they all got into the cab.

"I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you." Gabriel winked as the cab pulled out into the night's traffic.

It didn't take long for Gabriel's cologne, Alex and Monica's perfume, and the smells left in the cab from previous passengers to become overwhelming. Alex, who was stuck in the middle seat, started to feel lightheaded. Gabriel thankfully rolled down the window, which just added exhaust to the mix, but it circulated the air at least.

"Ah, New York," Alex laughed as she took a deep breath. "I can feel my lungs turning black with each breath."

"You need some of that after all the fresh air you got over the summer," Monica laughed. "I bet your lungs were almost pink again and we can't have that."

"You spent two months in Louisiana on the family plantation, don't act like I was the only one that escaped the city," Alex laughed, tugging on a curl that escaped Monica's hair clip before turning to Gabriel. "Where do you live?"

"Hell's Kitchen, born and raised. My family still lives there, so I stay close to help my parents and younger siblings when I can."

"Even after the Battle of New York? Wasn't the whole neighborhood destroyed?" Alex bit her lip after asking, knowing it was insensitive. Gabriel just shrugged.

"You're from where you're from. I love Hell's Kitchen, even with all it's problems. Wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Gabriel smile was less carefree and a little sadder. "Besides, if all the good people left, who would be left attempting to clean up the place?"

"Yes, that masked madman. A lone vigilante against gun runners, human traffickers, and corruption. That's really going to help," Monica rolled her eyes. "Last time I checked, he was the only one doing anything, and we aren't even sure he's a good guy."

Gabriel gave her a look, a small frown on his face, but didn't say anything. Alex got the feeling that this was a conversation that they had before. She really didn't know much about Hell's Kitchen other than what she read in the paper. Most of it wasn't good. Then again, the news was rarely good no matter what geological area you were in anymore.

They piled out of the cab in front of Marquee and straightened their clothes. The line was already pretty long and Alex wondered how many of those people had dressed up, only to be turned away after waiting for hours. Monica ignored all of them and skipped up to the very large, very imposing bouncer at the front door. She checked her nails while he looked over the list for their names. Alex knew this song and dance, she started sneaking into bars when she was fourteen.

The bouncer waved them, looking bored. Alex walked through the doors and was blasted with noise and pounding bass. Inside wasn't packed, it was still early in the night, but there was already a group on the dancefloor and about two deep at the bar. Holographic wallpaper was projected behind the DJ and light up letters spelled out the club's name on the side of the staircase leading up to a seating area.

Gabriel took Monica's credit card and pushed toward the bar to open a tab while Monica dragged Alex to the dance floor. Soon, the three of them were dancing and laughing and drinking, completely drenched in sweat. A few other men came to dance with the girls, but none stayed for more than a song. After about two hours, Alex couldn't feel her feet and needed to get out of the crush of people. Unfortunately, it was also her turn to get drinks so she headed over to the bar while Gabriel and Monica went to look for seating.

It took a few moments, and avoiding more than a couple elbows and feet, Alex finally got to the bar. The bartender was on the other side, so she shifted from one foot to the other, trying to figure out why she decided six inch heels were a good idea. A man caught her eye as she looked after the bartender, tall with black hair and a deep purple shirt. He smiled at her, leaning a little further forward to get a better look at her around the crowd.

One of the bartenders finally got to Alex and she added another round of drinks and shots to the tab. The man down the bar was gone when she looked back. She was a little disappointed. It wasn't that she planned to go home with anyone, not exactly ready for that, but it would be nice for someone to be interested in her. Maybe Monica was right, maybe she needed to get into the dating scene again, even if she didn't feel ready for it. One-night stands had been a specialty of Alex's for a while. The only time she had tried that over the summer, they ended up just stayed up late, drinking. He was a soldier back from Iraq and needed someone to talk to.

"Hey." A deep voice was in Alex's ear.  
The club was extremely warm, but it suddenly felt as if ice water had been dumped down her spine. Every fiber of her body tensed, as if she had been shocked, and her mind was ringing all the warning bells. Her fingers went to her wrist. However, Alex calmly turned to look at the speaker. It was the dark haired man from down the bar.

"I noticed you down the bar earlier. I like the dress," The man shouted to be heard over the music, his fingers brushing against the fabric at her collarbones. "It looks good on you."

"Thanks." Alex moved back so that his fingers were no longer on her. She could smell the whiskey on his breath so she figured he was too drunk to remember personal space. Still, her body was telling her to get away from him as soon as possible.

"You wanna dance?" The man put his hand on the small of her back, which was skin on skin contact because the back of the dress was so low. Alex tensed, and felt as if ice was being pressed against her skin even though his hand was sticky with sweat.

"Can you take your hand off me, please?" Alex's voice was tense as she tried to move away, but there were too many people for her to get space. Thankfully, the bartender started to put the drinks in front of Alex and she was glad for an excuse to leave. She turned to collect them.

"Come on, don't be like that." The man's hand slipped down her back and under the fabric of her dress as he moved closer. "I'm a nice guy when you give me a chance."

"In my experience, when someone had to say that they are a nice guy, they usually aren't." Alex stopped pretending to be nice, she gathered up the glasses to leave the bar.

"Hey," the man's fingers dug into her skin and pinned her against the bar. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Listen here, limp dick," Alex snapped as she shrugged so that his hand fell away and spun to face him. "Touch me again and, so help me, I will break every bone in your disgusting hand."

"You fucking-" He moved forward and Alex brought her heel down hard on his foot before bringing her knee up to slam into his stomach.

He held onto the bar coughing and swearing, so Alex gathered up the glasses and pushed her way through the crowd. Gabriel was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs and took some glasses so that she wouldn't drop anything. It was a good thing he did because her hands were shaking and her heart was pounding. Monica was lounging on a couch to save the whole thing, tapping away on her phone.

The couch was right at the rail, overlooking the dance floor. Alex handed out the drinks she had before fanning herself and catching her breath. The chill had disappeared and the heat of the club felt stifling. The adrenaline from the confrontation at the bar was wearing off and a headache had started to form. She downed her shot and took a long sip of her drink.

"You alright?" Monica asked after a few moments when she didn't join in her and Gabriel's conversation.

"There was just an asshole at the bar." The alcohol was helping her headache, but she couldn't figure out why she had such a reaction before the guy became an asshole. She had dealt with creeps before, hell, she had dated a few, and had never felt like that before.

"A girl just can't go out and have fun anymore," Monica rolled her eyes. "Tell me you told him to fuck off."

"You know me," Alex smiled at her, trying to relax a little.

"I do, which makes me worry for his health," Monica laughed.

"You look like the type of girl to give a good verbal lashing to a guy, not physically fight them," Gabriel laughed.

"Looks can be deceiving," Alex smiled at him, deciding at that moment she liked Gabriel.

"Well, is jackass still here so we can avoid him?" Monica asked as she leaned forward to look down on the dance floor.

"Hopefully he left, I might have roughed him up a bit." Alex shivered at the thought of being near him again. There was something not right about that man.

Alex leaned forward with Monica and looked for him in the crowd. When she didn't see him right away, she relaxed a little, but her eyes kept sweeping the club. Her eyes focused on a brunette stumbling away from the bar, black dress disheveled, leaning on the wall for support. Alex was about to point her out to Monica when the black haired man appeared and started to whisper in her ear. The girl didn't exactly push him off, but she stumbled away. All the hairs on Alex's back stood on end as she leaned further over the rail to get a better angle. The guy in the purple shirt looked over his shoulder, like he was checking if someone was watching him, before leaving the club after the girl.

"Where are you going?" Monica screamed after Alex as she grabbed her clutch and started for the stairs.

"I…I think I see someone I know. I'll be back in a few," she said before starting to push her way toward the staircase.

Monica screamed after her, but it was swallowed by the pounding bass. Alex had no idea why she lied to Monica, but she remembered the feeling of wrongness coming from that man. It wasn't fear or worry, it was wrong. Something deep inside her set everything on edge, every single fiber of her being. Alex wouldn't let something happen to that girl.


	3. Chapter 3

Alex realized as she pushed her way through the stream of people coming up the stairs that it would have been a good idea to bring Gabriel with her. The crush of bodies on the dance floor made it impossible for her to move quickly and when she saw a man with a shirt the color of blood slither out of the door, she knew it was too late to go back. Alex was just going to have to get the bouncer to do something.

It seemed like ages before Alex emerged from the club into the muggy air, making stray hairs stick to her face and neck. She prayed that the brunette had gotten herself into a cab, but Alex needed to make sure. There was no sign of the other woman, but Alex did catch a glimpse of the man she watched slip out in front of her turn into an alley beside the club. The way he looked over his shoulder made it obvious that he was up to something nefarious.

"Excuse me," Alex walked over to the bouncer, her panic rising. "I think those men went into that alley after a girl."

"That's not club property. Not my problem." The bouncer didn't even look at her.

"If they hurt someone and you knew about it, club property or not, you'll be held accountable." Alex looked toward the alley entrance again. Time was running out for that girl if she was down there and every instinct in Alex's body was telling her she was.

"If I leave this door, I lose my job. Call the cops if you're so worried. As far as I'm concerned, this conversation never happened." The bouncer shrugged and turned toward a group of clearly underage girls trying to sneak past him.

"There are other bouncers who work here, call them!"

Alex resisted the urge to stamp her foot in rage. The only thing that stopped her was that the six inch heels she had on were expensive and she was worried that her short skirt would show her very pretty red lace underwear. However, after a couple heart beats and the bouncer still ignoring her, she couldn't wait any longer.

"Fucking useless men," Alex muttered as she headed down the stairs and toward the alley.

Bile rose in her throat at the thought of being in an alley with three men who obviously had little respect for women. The feeling of Marcus's breath and blood all over her skin as he pinned her to the cold wet asphalt. Her throat closed at remembering the hopelessness and fear she felt pinned underneath him and thinking no one was going to save her. She still had nightmares about it. It didn't matter how scared she was, Alex wasn't going to leave this girl to suffer the same fate.

Alex had learned a few things since the year before and called the cops while she made her way toward the entrance of the alley. They answered pretty quickly and Alex asked a patrol car to swing by and see what was going on. It was a less than enthusiastic response to her vague explanation, which made her roll her eyes. Why was no one taking the fact that a woman was in danger of getting assaulted seriously?

The alley was dark, there was just one light over a side door of the club, but it was enough to see three men leaning over a stack of boxes at the very end. As Alex peered around the corner, a black stiletto appeared among the men. Rage welled in her so fast that it made her light headed.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Alex screamed as she walked down the alley a few steps. There was a chance, a small one, that the men might back down if they were caught in the act.

All three men spun around at Alex saw the brunette attempted to get up from the pile of boxes. Alex found it hard to believe that the other woman had the type of money to get this wasted at the prices the Marquee charged for drinks. These men had drugged her and the black haired one probably would have attempted to drug Alex before they had their altercation. Who the hell did these fuckers think they were?

"It's the blonde bitch that attacked me at the bar." The black haired asshole said.

The same cold feeling penetrated her bones yet again, every fiber of her being screaming danger and she should run. Alex's fingers went to her wrist, but she still took a few more steps into the alley. The longer they were focused on her, the better chance the brunette had and hopefully the longer the police had to show the hell up.

"And you're the back haired jackass that didn't know how to keep his hands to himself. Now that the introductions are out of the way, maybe you could leave that girl alone?" Alex didn't want this to be a fight. Three against one in her current outfit did not put the odds in her favor, even with rage making her blood sing.

"Why don't you come over here and join us? After all, there are three of us and only one of her." The blonde of the group flashed a predatory smile.

"We'll teach you some manners while we're at it," the black haired one growled.

Alex took a deep breath as she clicked open her clutch and slid her brass knuckles onto her fingers. She had left her switchblade at home, not sure if her purse would be checked at the club door or not. While she would have felt more comfortable having a more dangerous weapon, it also meant that she wouldn't cut off certain parts of these bastards anatomy. It wasn't that they didn't deserve it, but she had no intention of going to jail.

"Why don't you come down here and I'll teach you all a lesson about what happens when men don't take no for an answer?" The clutch was set on the top of a nearby dumpster and Alex rolled her shoulders. Jake had taught her some boxing moves when she was eleven, but that was the extent of her formal fighting training. Still, she had found herself in enough fights to know that she could hold her own.

After some chattering and jostling, the man in the blood red shirt stalked forward, his eyes roaming her body as his smile showed more white teeth. Alex waited, watching his every movement, her fingers curling and uncurling. There was a flicker of concern in the man's eyes when he got close enough to see that there was rage in Alex's eyes, not fear. Then it was gone and he reached out for her.

Alex easily ducked under his arm and delivered a quick uppercut with her brass knuckles. There was a satisfying crunch and he went down, out cold. A smile spread across Alex's face as she straightened her dress and looked at the two remaining men. She didn't want this fight, but she had to admit that felt damn good.

The other two stared with their mouths open for a heartbeat before rage contorted their features. Another heartbeat before they ran at her. Alex swung at the black haired one, but he dodged and went for a jab into her stomach. There was just enough time for her to spin out of the way to not take the full hit, but he still got her side knocking the wind out of her. The one in the red shirt kicked the back of her knee, causing her to stumble. He then grabbed her around the waist, pressing her to his chest. Alex brought both feet up and smashed those six in heels into the black haired one's chest as he charged at her again. She had a small rush of joy when that attack ended in a winded whimper.

Before Alex could get her feet underneath her, she was smashed face first into the bricks of the club with the red shirt man breathing on her neck. Suddenly the muggy August was now the crisp cold of autumn. There was a drizzle falling on her as she attempted to get her breath back. Markus was breathing on her, the smell of booze on his breath choking her. Panic rushed through Alex and she started to flail, but there she couldn't get enough space to shove him off of her.

There was a flash, like lightning, and then the weight was no longer pressing Alex against the wall. She spun around, gulping in the muggy air and feeling free from the breath on the back of her neck. Looking around, she saw that the man in the red shirt was pinned against the opposite wall with something white covering his hand. Alex attempted to figure out what the hell was going on when the black haired man appeared in her line of vision, rage in his eyes. Then there was a streak of red and blue and he was thrown against the alley wall. Another flash of light.

"Now that's no way to treat a lady, is it?" A male voice asked as he walked into Alex's field of vision.

It took Alex a moment for her brain to catch up to what her eyes were seeing. It was the back of a man, about her height, in a red and blue spandex suit that covered him from head to toe. She had no idea where he had come from, so the sudden appearance would have been jarring enough, but she could also see every muscle on his body. He was impressively built, though lean, and his ass was fantastic. Where the hell had he come from?

"Who the fuck are you, you fucking freak?" The black haired man spat.

"Such language, you're going to make me blush." Spandex flicked his wrist and white film covered the man's mouth. "You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

The man in black charged at Spandex, who easily grabbed him by the shoulder, spun him around, and got him into a choke hold. The man with the black hair tried to slam them both into the brick wall, but at the last minute Spandex let go and the black haired man smashed his own head into the bricks. The bastard went down, hard, and had a problem getting his limbs underneath him.

Alex saw movement out of the corner of her eye and watched as the man in the blood red shirt ripped his hand free from the wall, charging at Spandex like a bull. Alex stuck her leg out, tripping him, and Spandex brought his knee up to get him right under the jaw.

"You alright?" Spandex asked after the man in the blood red shirt hit the pavement. Alex could now see that there was a blue spider emblem on Spandex's chest.

"Better than they are," Alex waved her hand to the three men laying around them. "Thanks for showing up when you did from…wherever you came from."

"You seemed to have it handled, I just didn't want them to ruin your clothes. You seem dressed for a good time." Spandex walked over and poked one of the men with his toe, ignoring her question about where he had come from.

"Yeah, you seemed dressed to…do this I guess," Alex laughed as she moved past Spandex and tried to rouse the brunette, but she was completely out of it. "I called the cops already, she needs to get to a hospital."

"I don't have to worry about delivering these guys then," Spandex walked over to the end of the alley, though he gave Alex some space. "By the way, if that's what you want to dress to fight crime, you might want to wear some more comfortable footwear."

"No offense, but I'm not going to take fashion advice from a guy in head-to-toe spandex." Alex gave him a look that was rewarded with a laugh. "What the hell were you doing back here?"

"Women have been assaulted behind this club almost every weekend for the past month. I decided to put an end to it since no one else seemed to be." The black haired man started to stir so Spandex kicked him hard in the jaw again as he walked by.

"I hadn't heard about that." Alex walked down the alley and grabbed her clutch from the dumpster. If the cops weren't there in two minutes, she was calling 9-1-1. On her way back toward the brunette, she picked some of the white substance off the wall. It was a weird consistency and sticky, words that you really don't like to use when describing white substances you find in back alleys.

"The owner of the club keeps pushing the story to the back of the newspaper and stating that they weren't connected. When they were published, he made sure they were written so that the girls were obviously to blame. Asshole." Spandex grabbed one of the attackers as if he weighed nothing and dragged him toward the fire escape. There were a few more flicks of his wrist and then he was hoisting him up to dangle over the alley like a piñata.

The lack of media coverage explained why Monica had never mentioned it and thought it was safe to come here for their celebratory night out. As the vice president of Delta Gamma, she kept her ear to the ground about anything that could potentially be dangerous to the sisters. In New York, that was no easy feat. However, multiple attacks in the same area on women would be something she would have broadcasted if she had known.

"So, I'm guessing there's a reason you're dressed in spandex, whoever you are." Alex slid her brass knuckles off her fingers as she heard sirens in the distance. They weren't illegal to have, but it wouldn't look good for her to have them on her person and three unconscious men. The problem was that there was only one place to hide, so she slid them into the breast cup. It was really uncomfortable, but she didn't want to explain when the police arrived. Luckily, there was enough padding in the cups that they didn't mess up the lines of her dress or draw attention. God bless the relentless quest for bigger looking boobs.

"Why does nobody get the whole mask wearing thing? Seriously." Spandex asked as he finished trussing up the three assholes. "I wear a full body suit and a mask and everyone still asks who I am. I just don't get it."

"Alright, smartass. What do you go by then? Every vigilante has a name." Alex couldn't help but smile a little as she went to check on the brunette again, sirens getting closer.

"Spider-man. I'm a little offended that you haven't heard of me. There is rarely a day that _The Daily Bugle_ isn't stating that I'm public enemy number one." Spider-man then started crawling up the wall as if he was moving across the ground.

Alex couldn't help but let her mouth fall open as she watched him effortlessly defy gravity. It was impressive and suddenly the moniker made a whole lot of sense. Spider-man didn't seem to be paying attention to the approaching sirens as he used his feet and one hand to stay stuck to the wall as he pulled a camera off the side of the building. It had been stuck there with more of the sticky white fiber, which was obviously some sort of synthetic substance. At least she had an explanation for the flashes, if not anything else.

"Well, Spider-man, you might want to get out of here. I bet it's hard to explain why you're in spandex and spend your night shooting white stuff in the back alleys to cops." Alex gave him a smirk.

"Now when you say it like that," he jumped down gracefully and slid the camera into a backpack that had been tucked into the corner of the alley, "it just sounds weird."

"That just occurred to you? That what you do is weird?" Alex laughed, tilting her head to track where the sirens were.

"You need a lift?" Spider-man asked, hand poised on the wall to start to ascend.

"I have a lot of experience talking to cops, don't worry about me. Besides, I don't think my current outfit would be conducive to scaling buildings," Alex smiled.

"Have it your way," Spider-man said before he climbed the wall and disappeared onto the roof.

The next moment there were police officers in the alley, hands on pistols, asking questions and checking on the brunette. Alex couldn't help but realize how different this alley fight was from the year before. The constant was a vigilante saving her, but this time the police were there and she was prepared. At least she learned not to take this vigilante home with her.

"Miss Harper, why am I not at all surprised to see you?" A voice asked behind her as she finished giving her statement to the uniformed officer. The police had loaded the brunette onto an ambulance already and Alex was just hoping she was alright.

Alex turned to see a police detective standing behind her, hand in his pockets, smiling at her. It was hard for her to see the face with all the flashing lights from police cars behind him, but it only took a moment to place the voice. When the wavy brown hair, strong jaw, and broad shoulders came into view Alex already knew who it was even without the blue NYPD uniform she had always seen him in.

"Officer Sousa, what a pleasant surprise." Alex smiled at Michael as he stopped in front of her.

It had been almost a year since the last time she had seen him. The district attorney had called her to make a more complete statement at the police station, though thankfully she hadn't been forced to testify on the stand against her ex-boyfriend Markus. The interview was held at the police station and it had been a mentally grueling day. It wasn't just because of everything she had to remember, but also the mental gymnastics she had to do to keep James out of the narrative. By the end of the whole thing, she was a shell of a person.

Michael had taken her home in his car and, probably against protocol, stayed with her until Monica came over with pizza and a bottle of wine. He had called her once or twice after that to give an update on the trial and ask how she was doing, but then it was radio silence. Alex really hadn't been in the reaching out mood over the summer so they had lost touch. If Monica hadn't stayed on her ass, she would have lost touch with everyone.

"I'm hoping you being connected to unconscious men isn't going to be an annual event." Michael took a notebook out of his suit jacket before be slipped it off and put it around Alex's shoulders. "So what's the story this time? Another ex-boyfriend fall into the wall like at your apartment last year or maybe they beat each other up fighting for your affection?

"I didn't lay a hand on them." Michael gave her a long look. "Okay, I may have punched them once or twice, but most of this damage was done by someone else. Hand of God."

"Let me guess, the same guy who shot this all over the walls?" Michael tilted his head toward the webbing that was left behind by Spider-Man as he slipped a pen out of the top of the small notebook. "That's why I'm here, so tell me everything."

"Well, since you asked so nicely," Alex laughed as she tugged his jacket closer to her body, even though it was still warm. "He called himself Spider-Man. Tall, lean guy in spandex that is remarkably flexible and does parkour like no one I've ever seen before. What does he have to do with you?"

"It has to do with me because I'm low man on the detective totem pole. That means that I've been tasked with finding and unmasking Spider-Man, and any other vigilante that may appear," Michael sighed, not looking up from his notepad.

"Technically, it's a special task force, a huge honor, but there are only two people on the force currently. That, along with the number of idiots trying to fight crime since the Avengers have become so famous, and I'm a very tired man. So, start from the beginning and tell me everything that happened."

"Is there somewhere we can sit? You're exhausted and these shoes aren't exactly made for standing around, believe it or not." Alex didn't want to think about how long this whole ordeal was going to take, but Michael looked as tired as she felt. The last time she went through this, it was all a blur, so she really couldn't even use that as an estimate. No good deed goes unpunished.

"My SUV is parked at the curb, come on." Michael motioned her to walk with him, his arm hovering at her lower back as a guide, but he didn't touch her.

Alex was thankful that it was Michael guiding through the crowd and taking her statement. He was a good man that had always been sweet to her. He also had the decency not to stare at her legs, which was more than could be said for some of the uniformed cops. A chill settled over Alex as she realized how differently the last hour could have gone. It made her stomach churn and she gripped onto the coat a little tighter as Michael popped the passenger side door of a large black SUV.

"What do you know about this Spider-Man guy?" Alex asked as she hopped up onto the seat. She suddenly became very aware of how short her skirt was and how careful she had to sit.

"You must not read _The Daily Bugle_ , he's on the front page almost every day." Michael leaned against the door, blocking everyone's view of Alex.

"I really don't do newspapers, or news, really. There's enough horror in the world, I don't want to go hunting for it. Besides, most of it ends up on Twitter where I can't avoid it anyway." The last thing Alex needed was to end up on the front page of _The Daily Bugle_ for a wardrobe malfunction so she slipped Michael's jacket off her shoulder and draped it over her lap.

"Well, according to the paper, Spider-Man is a criminal and a detriment to the city. So, if you could start from the beginning, Miss Harper, I would appreciate it," Michael poised his pen to write once again.

"And here I thought we were on first name basis, Detective Sousa. You gave me your jacket and everything," Alex smirked as he blushed slightly. "Well, it started at the bar inside the club when I went to get drinks. The black haired one came up to me-"

"A.J!" Alex turned to see Monica and Gabriel at the front of the crowd surrounding the alley. Monica was pushing against the officer's arm and Gabriel was gripping onto her waist to stop her from getting arrested.

"So, if I'm putting two and two together, you were with a tall, well-built male and you went into an alley by yourself to confront three men? In six-inch heels?" Michael spoke slowly, as if it was taking every ounce of his patience not to scream at her. She seemed to have that effect on people.

"I was so worried about that woman that I didn't really think about it," Alex said to defend herself as she waved at Monica so show that she was alright. "I might also have had a bit to drink tonight."

"You didn't think? How very unlike you," Michael sighed as he waved his hand to show that Monica and Gabriel could be let through.

Monica ran over to Alex, almost knocking Michael over, and wrapped her in a huge bear hug that was close to pulling Alex out of the SUV. As soon as Monica was done pressing all the air from her lungs, she started checking Alex for cuts and bruises. Gabriel was not as enthusiastic, giving Michael a nod as he stood on the curb. It was that thing men did that Alex never really understood, the head nod.

"You're alright." Monica let out a sigh of relief before she started smacking Alex with her clutch. "What the hell were you thinking? I leave you alone for five minutes and you go and get into a fight. What is wrong with you?"

"Do I have to arrest her for assault?" Michael smiled as Monica gave Alex a whack at each word. He seemed to be taking enjoyment from someone taking their frustration out on Alex.

"No, just a concerned friend." Alex fended off the last couple blows with her arm.

"We were all up on the balcony when I saw the brunette in the black dress being followed by the black haired guy. The guy had been a total creep at the bar, so I knew he was trouble, and I wanted to make sure she got into a cab alright. She was obviously drunk or drugged and couldn't fend for herself. I tried to get the bouncer to do something, but he told me it wasn't his problem, so I called the cops and went after them myself."

"My guess is GHB. There have been a string of sexual assaults in this area using that drug. Fuckers." Michael muttered the last word through clenched teeth. Alex figured it was his personal, and not professional, opinion. Either way, she agreed with it wholeheartedly, and it made her like Michael a little bit more.

"Yeah, there have been a string of attacks over the past month that haven't been reported or pushed to the back pages. Apparently those men had been hunting in this club for a while."

"Wait, the police have known about this and have done nothing to protect people?" Monica turned to look at Michael and Alex was worried she was about to start smacking him with the clutch.

"The assaults have been reported, but the girls could never identify their attackers because of the GHB." Michael took a step away from Monica, his eyes flashing to her clutch. "We've done everything we could, but we can't force reporters to report it or the club to shut down. There aren't enough officers to have someone stationed here every night."

"And you knew about this and didn't say anything?" Monica turned her frustration on Alex. There was nothing Monica hated more than something putting women in danger, such as knowing about a string of rapes and not saying anything.

"How do you know about it, Miss Harper?" Michael's eyes kept going to Monica's clutch and then back to Alex.

"There was a vigilante in the alley, a friendly neighborhood spider, and he gave me a tip while he was stringing the attackers up. What is that stuff he uses to bind them?" Alex directed the question to Michael because it was still bothering her not knowing. The material was blowing in the wind from where it still hung from the fire escape, yet it was strong enough to hold grown men above the pavement with just a few strands.

"I'm not supposed to tell you this, but the people at the lab are having a hell of a time identifying it. It has the properties of spider webbing, but it's stronger and not completely organic. I wish I knew where this guy was getting the stuff." Michael tapped his pen on his notepad. "Now, since I answered your question, could we get back to pretending that you see me as a police detective and let me conduct an interview? Like giving me a detail description of the vigilante."

"Detective Sousa, you are my favorite detective, don't ever forget that," Alex smiled at him. "The guy was in spandex from head to toe. There was a lot on display, but nothing that's going to be helpful to you. Unless you want me to come down and have a look at every guy in New York City that has a spectacular ass."

"Spectacular?" Gabriel asked, the first thing he had said since he came over.

"Spectacular," Alex confirmed.

"Now that we've cleared that up, if we could get back to the facts of the night." Michael cut in before Monica could ask a question. "Could you start from the beginning again, Miss Harper?"

For the next forty-five minutes, Alex explained everything that happened from when she saw the black haired man at the bar to the point that the police showed up. The whole thing only took about fifteen minutes in real time, telling it should have only taken five, but Monica, Gabriel, and Michael kept interrupting her. It started with a few unflattering comments underneath his breath about the black haired man when Alex told them at the scuffle at the bar. Gabriel said them at full volume, but in Spanish. Luckily, she didn't need to know Spanish to know that the comments were unflattering. Still, Monica was the one that interrupted more than anyone else, mostly yelling at Alex for her poor life choices.

"It's a good thing that vigilante showed up when he did, or you would have been in serious trouble." Monica took Alex's hand. "Why do you make me worry about you this way?"

"I swear I don't do it on purpose." That was the truth, Alex never meant to get herself into these situations. "Besides, Spider-Man was camped out in the alley because of the attacks. I was completely safe."

"But you didn't know that," Monica pointed out, squeezing Alex's hand tightly.

"You think you could get him to swing by Hell's Kitchen?" Gabriel asked with a smirk, diffusing the argument between the girls. "We could use someone like that to take care of some of our problems. The police are just trying to arrest this guy because he's doing their jobs for them." Gabriel looked pointedly at Michael.

"I know the guy is only trying to help," Michael said defensively. "But all that's going to happen is he's going to get himself hurt or killed. There are cops for a reason."

"But you said yourself that you can't be everywhere," Monica pointed out.

"You also can't climb up walls," Alex added, realizing that she didn't tell Michael about the camera. There was still time to tell him, but decided against it. The reason that Spider-Man was taking pictures was his own business. She doubted the pictures showed the attackers faces so it would be useless in trial. The thought of a trial made Alex shiver, it was one of her worst nightmares to take the stand.

"Okay, well," Michael sighed as he flipped his notebook closed, ignoring Alex's last comment. "I think that's everything I need tonight. We found vials filled with liquid on two of the men, which is probably more GBH, and an empty vial on the other. That should nail them, but it will be up to the girl to press charges about the attempted assault. She's going to have to identify them and hopefully now that we have their faces, the other girls will remember something."

"So, I won't have to testify?" Alex's voice was hopefully even to her ears. It sounded selfish, and it was, but Alex did not like the spotlight. It was one thing to wear a flashy dress, it was another to be in the papers for testifying in court.

"I can't say for sure. If she doesn't press charges or if she can identify them, you're statement should be enough, but…" Michael took a deep breath and sighed. "The other girls may not remember or decide to testify or the boys may get a good lawyer and he could subpoena you."

"Well, you have my number if you need anything," Alex smiled, feeling a weight settled on her shoulders.

"Does he?" Monica had been leaning against the SUV, Gabriel behind her, looking as if she was almost asleep until that point. However, at the mention of a guy having Alex's number had perked her right up.

"I know where you live too," Michael smiled, shooting a quick glance at Monica to see her reaction. The reaction was putting her hands on her hips and staring at Alex pointedly. Michael smiled wider. He was getting back at Alex for all those times she had teased him.

"Not any more, I moved," Alex explained, ignoring the look Monica was giving her.

"If you need the address, text me."

"I'll do that, so don't make another crime scene just to see me, please." Michael held out his hand to help her down from the SUV.

"One crime scene a year is my limit," Alex laughed as she grabbed his hand and his suit jacket, carefully maneuvering her way out of the passenger seat. She was very careful to make sure that all her bits were covered.

"Glad to hear it." Michael held her hand as she adjusted her dress before letting it go.

Monica watched the whole interaction with a critical eye, which made Alex understand why he might not have been overly friendly. There was also the small matter that Michael was at work and the other officers watching him. She wasn't around cops a lot, so she wasn't sure if showing her interest would make him gain or lose respect.

"What about calling it a night? I've had more than enough excitement," Gabriel said around a yawn as he guided Alex over to where he was standing with Monica.

"One of my guys can give you all a lift home," Michael said as Alex handed his suit coat back. "I have to stay, but a patrol car could take you to your places."

"I don't want to sound rude," Monica's smile was tight as she regarded Michael and Gabriel tensed a little, "but the thought of riding in the back of a cop car gives me hives. We'll grab a cab."

"Right, understandable," Michael smiled apologetically to her and Gabriel as a uniformed officer came up to his side. "You're free to go. If I need anything, I'll reach out."

"If he needs anything," Monica winked at Alex, speaking loud enough that Michael could hear her as they walked away.

"Monica, you know what he meant," Alex sighed as the cab Gabriel hailed pulled up to the curb behind the SUV. Gabriel slid into the backseat, than Monica, before Alex moved to get into the cab.

"Hey Alex," Michael called when Alex had her hand on the door, causing her to stop.

"Michael?" It was the first time that he had said her first name all night.

"Nice dress," he gave her a full smile before turning to the officer at his elbow.


	4. Chapter 4

"If I'd known that you had a cop hanging around, I wouldn't have pushed you so hard to find a guy to hook up with." Monica's voice attempted to sound nonchalant, but there was a sly look on her face that Alex knew all too well.

"He's a very good looking guy, very broad shoulders," Gabriel added, smiling like the cat who ate the canary as he held the apartment building door open for Monica and Alex.

"It's not like that and you both know it." Alex rolled her eyes as they all waved to Henry while they crossed the lobby and made their way to the elevator.

"It might not be like that now, but I don't think he's mind if it was," Gabriel wiggled his eyebrows as the elevator started up to Monica's place.

"Alright, laugh it up." Alex let a smile creep onto her face as she leaned back and closed her eyes. The metal was cold against her exposed back, but it felt nice after how hot it had been outside and in the cab.

There was nothing romantic between Alex and Michael, but she would be lying if she hadn't thought about it once or twice. It would never happen, but she had thought about it. In reality, Alex was far too messed up from what happened last year and still too involved with James to pull a nice guy like Michael into that particular mess.

"Seriously though, only you would turn a nice night out into a police investigation," Monica sighed as she opened the door to her apartment and they all walked in. She went right to the fridge and pulled out bottles of beer for everyone.

"Hey, if the bouncer would have done something, I wouldn't have been involved at all," Alex pointed out as she took the beer and jumped up onto the kitchen counter.

"Girl, there is something not right with you." Monica shook her head as she watched Alex take the brass knuckles out of her dress and slip them back into her clutch.

"Does this happen to her often?" Gabriel asked.

"No," Alex sighed.

"Yes," Monica said over her.

"That's very informative," Gabriel laughed before taking a long drink from his beer. "Glad you could clear that up for me."

"Monica seems to think that I like to find the most dangerous situations in a ten mile radius and throw myself into them due to some past bad decisions I have made," Alex clarified as she kicked her feet.

"This girl has an ex-boyfriend who almost killed her, most of her other exes are criminals, and for a week last should year she looked like she went ten rounds with the Hulk." Monica moved into the kitchen, done being dramatic, and gave Alex a look as she walked by. "But I'm the one that's overacting."

"You're not going to let that go, are you?" Alex laughed as she watched Monica pour three shots from an unmarked bottle and handed her one.

"Hey," Monica bumped her knee with her hip, "I just want you to be safe. I like you too much now for something to happen to you. It's just me being selfish, if I'm being honest."

"And you always get your way," Alex smiled as she raised her shot glass, Gabriel getting up and joining them. "Here's to me trying to stay out of trouble."

"¡Por dios! What was that?" Gabriel coughed after he downed the shot, putting the back of his hand to his mouth.

"Louisiana special," Monica laughed, not at all phased, "and before you ask, I have no clue what's in it. I just get my Dad to make me a couple bottles when I go home to bring to the city with me."

"I think it's pure god damn alcohol," Alex laughed as she held out her shot glass. "Give me another one."

"I knew I liked you for a reason," Monica laughed as she poured another round.

"I am going to regret this in the morning," Gabriel laughed as he saluted to the two of them before all three downed the second round of shots.

The group finished their beers and did three more shots of Louisiana Special before calling it a night. Alex would have been content to stay there the rest of the night, but Monica fell asleep between shots and Gabriel was dozing as well. Alex just felt numb, but that had nothing to do with the alcohol. It was just the calm before the storm.

Gabriel, bless him, offered to walk her up to her apartment, but Alex had declined as she didn't think he was sober enough to make it up the two flights of steps. The warm little glow from her bedside lamp, pushing away any imagined monsters, was comforting and Alex thanked her past self for turning it on before she left. Ghosts of her past were already crowding her head, making it so that her nightmares tonight were probably going to be horrendous, she didn't need to add to it by walking into a dark apartment.

Alex's phone started to ring, which surprised her as it was almost three in the morning. She figured it was Jake. It would be just like him to call her because he was worried about her and then complain tomorrow that he was tired. However, the screen stated that the caller was unknown, but she accepted the call and put it up to her ear.

"Hello?" Alex slipped out of her red dress and left it on the bedroom floor as she made her way to the bathroom.

There was silence on the other end of the line, but there was background noise that let her know that someone was there. Alex waited a moment, her fingers going up to itch the new tattoo on her chest. She had gotten it as close to her heart as possible while still making it look nice, but the dress had aggravated it a good deal. She had gotten it as soon as she returned to the city, no one in her one street town was even a tattoo artist, let alone one that knew Russian, but obviously she should have kept the bandage on another day.

"Hello? Is there anyone there?" Alex asked again, leaning against the sink.

There was another beat before the line went dead. Alex shrugged and then completed her night time rituals, dressing in a tank top and underwear. Instead of going to bed, she grabbed a bottle of water and dropped onto the couch. Exhaustion was settling on her, but the fear of a hangover and fear of nightmares made Alex avoid her bed.

The apartment had cooled down since the afternoon, but compared to Monica's air conditioned place it was sweltering as Alex powered up her laptop. When she blinked, Markus' face was in front of her, or Grant's, or Nadia, making her heart race. If this was how bad it was while awake, she didn't want to know what it would be like if she let her subconscious take over. Alex had no regrets about what she did tonight, even if that girl would have been saved by Spider-Man and she wouldn't be able to sleep for a couple of nights. It wasn't as if she had been having restful nights anyway. At least that girl wouldn't be plagued by the same nightmares.

Social media held Alex's attention long enough for her to drink two bottles of water, but there were not a lot of people posting this late at night. Alex figured she was sober enough to comb the college library's articles on PTSD, memory coding, and anything else that had to do with memory alteration. It was something she had started back on the farm, after her parents banned her from leaving the house before five in the morning. She knew that it was ridiculous, pulling out her notebook and finding a blank page, but maybe she would be able to find a way to help James. A way to bring him back to her in a way they could both accept.

At five-thirty in the morning, all of Alex's study materials went flying as her alarm went off, scaring her. Instinct made her grab the laptop while everything else scattered onto the floor along with the four empty water bottles. After getting her heart rate to an acceptable level and checking to make sure her phone wasn't cracked, Alex turned off her alarm, put everything on the battered trunk that was her coffee table, and got changed to go running.

Last year, Alex had a set route that she would take every morning, but that had devolved into running as long as it would take for her to fall into a dreamless sleep for a couple hours. Between the sleep deprivation and possibly still being drunk, her pace was a lot slower than normal. It was almost seven when she dragged herself into the lobby of the apartment building, drenched in sweat and breathing like a woman in labor.

"Miss Harper," Henry called as Alex made her way toward the elevators, probably near the end of his shift. "There is a gentleman who has been waiting for you."

"Look what the cat dragged in," Alex smiled as she saw Sam Wilson sitting on the bench by the door. "When did you get back into the country?"

"About three hours ago." Sam said with a smile before gathering her into a tight hug, ignoring that she was literally dripping sweat. "I was jet-lagged and knew you were back in the city, so I figured I could take you to breakfast. You look like hell, by the way. How long were you running?"

"Too long," Henry said from behind the newspaper he was reading.

Sam gave Alex a look, but she waved away his concern as they walked to the elevators. Communication between her and Sam, much like with everyone else, had been sporadic over the summer. In this case, it wasn't just her fault as Steve dragged Sam's all over God's green earth in search of James and on other secret missions. Still, she had missed him and the calming presence he surrounded her with. There wasn't even any anxiety for her to get onto the elevator with Sam around.

"Now," Sam said as they rode up to her floor, "I got here at six-thirty and it's almost seven now. If I remember correctly, your alarm goes off at five-thirty. It's not an unheard of amount of time to run, but I have the feeling you aren't doing it for the health benefits."

"Sam, I haven't seen you in months. Can you not nag me within the first ten minutes?" Alex laughed as she unlocked her apartment door and let him inside.

"I'm not nagging, I'm concerned. There's a difference." Sam put his hand on Alex's shoulder to stop her forward momentum. "You aren't sleeping again, it's obvious, so I have a right to be concerned."

"I'm managing Sam, promise." Alex let his hand stay on her shoulder for a moment, letting him know that she appreciated his concern, before shaking it off and going to grab two bottles of water.

"The deep purple bags under your eyes tell a different story, as does your apartment." Sam looked at the laptop and notebook on the coffee table while making his circuit around the apartment.

"I went out clubbing last night, if you must know." Alex threw the second bottle of water at him, wondering if he was looking for new places to hide listening devices.

"I didn't get in until three. That didn't leave a lot of time for sleep."

"The red little sparkly number on the floor did catch my eye," Sam caught the bottle easily and took a sip. "I bet it caught a lot of other eyes last night too. Any reason you didn't bring a pair of those eyes home?"

"Who says I didn't?" Alex laughed as she picked up the dress and dumped it into the hamper in her closet and tried to figure out what to wear for breakfast.

"The same way I know you didn't sleep last night," Sam dropped down onto the couch and put his feet up onto the trunk.

"I could have made the bed before I went for my run this morning," Alex countered, but she knew Sam wasn't going to buy it.

"And you kicked the poor bastard out of bed at five-thirty in the morning to run? Either he was horrible in bed or you're a cold-hearted bitch." Sam smiled wide to show he was joking before he became serious again. "Alexandra, really, are you doing alright?"

Sam had become her makeshift therapist last year, as well as her roommate at times. Part of the reason that happened was because Steve needed Sam in New York, but didn't have anywhere to live. The other reason was Alex needed him. Who else was she going to talk to about superheroes, mythical assassins, and alien artifacts? She didn't tell him everything, James was a subject that was barely touched on, but there was no one else that would believe any of it. When Alex woke up screaming from her nightmares of assassins and blood, Sam would drag himself off her couch and they would sit up doing puzzles all night. He wouldn't ask her about the dreams, but he would talk to her about them if she brought them up. Usually they just sat there, looking where to put each piece, and complaining about the infomercials.

"Samuel, seriously," Alex sighed, but decided to tell him the truth. "I'm still having nightmares, but they aren't as bad as they used to be."

"You told me over the summer that they were almost gone," Sam huffed.

"It wasn't a complete lie. They really weren't as bad while I was on the farm, but they have gotten worse since I moved back. I didn't want to bother you," Alex added quickly when she saw him start to open his mouth. "I'm handling it."

"Your hour and a half run after not sleeping proved that you're completely and totally well adjusted." Sam shook his head. "If you think we aren't going to discuss this in depth, you really are out of your damn mind."

"If you think you're going to badger me about this without breakfast, you really are out of your damn mind," Alex countered. "If I have to face the inquisition, I at least want to have a last meal."

"You are looking a little pale under that tan, food will probably do you good." Sam waved his hand, almost splashing water onto the floor. "However, I'm not going anywhere while you smell like a locker room."

"Your concern is so touching." Alex rolled her eyes before disappearing into the bathroom.

Luckily, Alex had shaved before going out the night before, but she stayed under the hot water a little longer than necessary. It was hard to tell if she felt like shit because of the hangover, exhaustion, or knowing that whatever Sam brought up over breakfast was not going to be a fun conversation. However, she needed to seem put together or Sam would be camping out on her couch again and Steve would be kicking down her door.

After the shower, Alex tugged on the sundress she just grabbed out of her closet. It wasn't until she was pulling her hair into a bun that she realized it was the sky blue dress James had bought for her at a thrift shop. The price tag was still attached to the hem. She had never worn it even though he insisted it would look good on her. He was right.

"There is this novel notion call privacy. Ever heard of it?" Alex asked as she walked out to see Sam flipping through her notebook. She had put enough concealer under her eyes to cover the bags as well as blue eyeshadow, winged eyeliner, and a few rings. As always, her grandfather's dog tags lay against her chest.

"There's no such thing as privacy between friends." Sam snapped the notebook closed. "This is pretty heavy stuff. Neuroscience, neuronal anatomy, memory coding…"

"Is there a question in there somewhere?" Alex slipped on a pair of white flip-flops.

"You're a biochemist. What's with all this shit?" Sam dropped the notebook and rolled his shoulders.

"Sam, you already know why I'm looking into it. Don't insult either of us by pretending that you don't." Alex transferred what she needed from the clutch last night and into a white purse.

"Well, I have to be honest, the new ink was a tip off," Sam sighed. "What does it say anyway?"

"Trouble never comes alone,' there's a red star underneath the letters." There was silence in the studio apartment after that. She could feel the disapproval radiating off Sam.

"That's a good phrase for you to have, that's for sure. You're the definition of trouble. Alex," Sam said as they walked to the door, making her look at him. "I don't want you to drive yourself crazy trying to save Bucky. You're too smart and I can only keep one stupid blonde sane at a time. Leave finding him to me and Steve."

"I have to do something, Sam," Alex focused on locking on the apartment and not at him. "I can't just pretend that he didn't exist, believe me I tried. I spent all summer trying to forget him and that lead me to hallucinate him in my room one night. Ignoring him wasn't working, so I started to do research instead. It helps."

"Hallucinations?" Sam pursed his lips.

"Hallucination, singular, and I didn't want to worry you or Steve. And don't try to tell me you wouldn't have told Steve," Alex got herself to smile at him. "It was at the beginning of the summer. I promise it hasn't happened since, just run of the mill nightmares."

"How do I get myself mixed up with you people?" Sam sighed.

"You people?" Alex laughed as they waited for the elevator again.

"Individuals with no self-preservation skills, too smart for their own good, and can't let anything or anyone go," Sam winked at her as they walked across the elevator.

"Funny, that sounds like the best kind of friend, if you ask me," Alex smiled as they slid sunglasses on as they walked outside. "So where are you taking me for breakfast?"

"Don't worry, I think you're going to like it." Sam smiled as he hailed them both a cab.

"A.J. Where the hell have you been?" Crystal asked as she enveloped Alex in a hug as they entered Malone's restaurant.

"I went home for the summer and just got back on Sunday," Alex explained when they let go of one another, looking around her former place of employment.  
Malone's restaurant was a former bar and reported Speakeasy and still kept all that charm with exposed brick walls, dark wooden floor and bar, and subway tiles on the wall separating the kitchen from restaurant proper. It was a long and narrow restaurant that was usually packed with families, business people, and the odd teenager that really wanted homemade French fries. Since it was a Saturday morning, almost every table was full, but they were early enough that there wasn't a wait.

Crystal had worked at the restaurant since it opened and was basically the vodka aunt to the rest of the waitresses. While Mrs. Malone had a habit of babying the employees, Crystal wanted to know what debauchery they got up to on the weekend. Alex rarely worked with her as she was on the day shift during the week, but when Alex picked up Sunday mornings they always had a good time.

"You're going to have to answer to the boss. She's going to be in pretty soon," Crystal said gravely as she led Alex and Sam to a booth in the back.

"The boss?" Sam was confused. He had met Mrs. Malone and she wasn't the sort to yell at anyone, let alone Alex. She was more the type to cry on Alex's shoulder and tell her how worried she had been.

"Oh, she's a tyrant." Crystal handed Sam his menu before turning her back and winking at Alex as she walked off.

Alex turned to look at the booth and saw that there was already someone sitting in the corner. While she turned to call Crystal back, Sam slid into the booth next to the mystery man as if there wasn't an issue with a random man being there. A longer look at the other man and Alex sighed, recognizing the hunched broad shoulders and bits of blonde hair that was peeking out beneath the blue baseball cap.

"Sam, why do you hate me?" Alex moaned as she dropped into the booth. She had only been joking about the inquisition earlier, but now it seems as if she actually was going to be interrogated.

"It's nice to see you too Alex," Steve laughed as he put the menu down and looked at her.

"Hello Steve." Alex looked at the two smiling faces across from her. It was difficult for her to stay mad at them, which made her even more aggravated.  
"So tell us about your summer, other than the nightmares." Sam sat his menu down to focus on Alex. "I just can't imagine you toiling in the field, a piece of straw in your mouth and a cowboy hat on."

"I'm from Kansas, not Texas, thank you very much. We're more trucker hat people." Alex laughed as she attempted not to look at Steve. "The summer was just a couple slow months in the sun. I helped my father out in the fields, cleaned up the classroom for my mom when the year was over, ran around with my dogs, Hunter and Cooper, swam in the creek, and worked on my tan."

"I noticed the tan. That sounds like a busy schedule to fit a hallucination into," Sam leaned back, throwing his arm over the back of the booth.

"Hallucination?" Steve looked up, his eyes darting from Sam and back to Alex from underneath his baseball hat. She used to think that it was ridiculous that he thought a simple hat would disguise the near perfect physical body underneath it, but she hadn't known it was him just moments before.

"Well, I wasn't sleeping that much, so I had time to squeeze it in," Alex ignored Steve and looked right at Sam. "For the first couple weeks I was on the farm, I didn't do anything except run. I was restless and I couldn't sleep, so I just ran for miles. My memory was spotty, due to the lack of sleep, and I felt like hell physically and mentally."

"You don't say," Sam huffed, shaking his head.

"What was the hallucination of?" Steve set the menu down and his blue eyes bore into Alex, which she continued to ignore as Crystal came and took the orders.

"The hallucination happened at the end of May, I hadn't put my air conditioner in the window yet and it was the first super warm night of the year. I couldn't get comfortable and I was worried about the nightmares, so I was only dozing. I heard the floorboard by the stairs squeak, I sat up and…" Alex trailed off and shook her head.

"You saw Bucky," Steve filled in, his voice sounding sad under the matter-of-fact tone. Alex nodded, playing with the menu to not look at him. If she saw pity in his eyes, she'd either cry or want to punch him.

"Anyway, the next morning I went for a much shorter run, started working with my father in the fields, and my mom taught me how to cook. It was this sort of schedule for myself. Nightmares became more manageable, sometimes going a week without one, and I could function," Alex finished quickly, not wanting to talk about it anymore.

"You didn't tell me any of this because you didn't want me to worry or lecture you, but I don't remember asking you to explain the hallucination," Sam laughed, but there was concern written all over his face.

"No, but Steve was practically foaming at the mouth to be told what was going on, so I figured I wouldn't beat around the bush," Alex smiled. "Besides, I know you were dying to ask."

Crystal showed up with coffee and orange juice for everyone, once again looking at Steve and Sam before raising an eyebrow to Alex. That was going to be a conversation she really didn't want to have, who the two attractive men were and which one was Alex sleeping with. There were worse things in the world than being surrounded by attractive men, but having to explain that she wasn't sleeping with any of them was getting old.

"A.J.!" A voice screeched at the top of its lungs.

Both Sam and Steve tensed at the voice, immediately trying to find the source. Alex only had enough time to turn in the seat before Sandy Malone was launching into her arms. The ten year old threw her arms around Alex's neck, almost choking her, as the older girl held her tightly. Sandy smelled like strawberries, which lead Alex to have a sneaking suspicion that there was now jam in her hair.

"Sandy, I've missed you so much!" Alex kissed Sandy's cheek, smiling like an idiot. "How was your summer? Are you ready for school?"

"Where have you been? We were supposed to go and get ice cream this summer, and go to the zoo, and have water balloon fights, and walk in the park." Sandy talked over Alex as she pulled back and pouted at the older girl, completely ignoring Sam and Steve.

"I'm sorry, love. I had to go home for the summer," Alex explained as she pulled lightly on Sandy's braid. "I'm sure that you had a great time without me. Your mom texted me pictures of you going to the Boardwalk and when you went to get your face painted."

"It would have been better if you were there." Sandy's pout did not lessen. "And my new babysitter is awful. We don't have any fun and she doesn't make the vegetables like you do. Please tell me you are coming back."

"Honey, I got a new apartment and job." Alex felt like the worst person in the entire world as Sandy gave her big brown puppy dog eyes. "But we can spend some weekends together and there is still time to go to the zoo. Maybe this weekend or the one after?"

Sandy pouted for a few more beats, playing with the Alex's dog tags while she contemplated the proposal. Sam and Steve were watching the whole interaction with interest, but didn't say anything as they sipped their coffee. When Alex looked over at them, Sam gave her one of those infuriating smiles that let her know she would get no help from him.

"You have to buy me ice cream?" Sandy's voice was still petulant.

"I think I can manage that. Am I forgiven now?" Alex matched Sandy's pout with one of her own.

Sandy waited one more moment before hugging her tightly and laughing. Alex tipped her over so that she was against the red booth seat as she started tickling her. This continued until the girl was squealing and drawing the attention of the other customers. Alex quieted them both down, but couldn't stop laughing all together. Sandy was a literal ray of sunshine.

"I can see what the waitress meant about her being a tyrant," Sam smiled now that the negotiations were over.

"Oh, she's a monster," Alex agreed before leaning over and kissing Sandy on the cheek, leaving a lipstick print on her other cheek. "Now, tell me about school. Fourth grade is scary business."

"It's not that scary. Miss Killian seems nice enough, but I need a lot of things before starting this year. I just bought this while backpack with dinosaurs on it and a Captain America lunch box." Sandy explained rapidly, bouncing in the seat, as Steve coughed up some of his coffee. "You should get one too, A.J. for your new job."  
"You really should get that lunchbox, especially with your new job" Sam said with a bright smile.

Alex gave him a look, but he didn't say anything else as Sandy continued to prattle about the upcoming school and karate classes. Finally, she looked over at Steve. He was giving a soft smile to Sandy before he met Alex's eye. He looked exhausted, she could see that he was barely keeping his eyes open, and she worried about him a little. Super soldier or not, he was not immortal. Then again, he probably felt the same way about her.

"Sandy, honey, take a breath," Crystal laughed when she came back to the table to top up the coffee mugs. "Have you even said hello to Alex's new boyfriend and his friend?"

"Oh, I'm not-" Steve started, but Sandy cut him off.

"He's not her boyfriend. She's dating that black haired guy with the long hair and the nice smile. Where's he?" Sandy corrected Crystal, turning to Alex with the question.

"Well, excuse me," Crystal said as she took out her pad to write the food orders down before anyone could say anything. "Though, I should have known you weren't dating either of them. They look too upstanding for the type of guys you usually pull anyway."

"Ha, ha, ha. I'll have the breakfast special, extra bacon." Alex handed the menu over as she looked at Steve. Why had he felt necessary to say they weren't dating while Sam didn't?

It wasn't like Crystal was lying about Alex's past relationship. Sam and Steve were on a totally different stratosphere than all the men she had dated. There would never be anything romantic between Alex and Sam, they just didn't click that way, even though Sam was very attractive. Sam was like her brother. Actually, she liked him more than her brother most days. Steve…well, Steve was Steve.

"I'll have the three egg breakfast," Sam gave Crystal a wink along with his order and menu. Crystal winked back as she finished writing up that order.

"I'll take the all American, thank you." Steve looked into the coffee cup, thinking that was going to stop him from being recognized.

"Where is your boyfriend? Did you have a fight? Is that why you went back to the farm?" Sandy asked Alex, tugging at her hand when she hadn't answered the question the first time it was asked.

"We didn't have a fight. He just…he had to leave." Alex prayed that she wouldn't ask any more questions. Steve was already going to interrogate her about James being referred to as her boyfriend. He had no idea how often they had been together, but now he knew they went to breakfast at least one morning.

Sandy had met James only once, but he had obviously left an impression. Nothing Alex could say would make any sense to Sandy. She still believed in fairy tales and happy endings and had parents to prove that it did happen. Alex envied that optimistic view of life a little. Still, the little girl was waiting for Alex to say more.

"So, this is where you ran off to," Mr. Malone said as he walked over to the table, much to Alex's relief. "At least you were accosting someone that is used to it. Hey, A.J. how was your summer? Who are your friends?"

"You remember Sam, Mr. Malone. This is Steve, another friend of mine." Alex motioned her hand to indicate each man. "My summer was good, lots of sun. Looks like you had an eventful summer as well. How'd you break your arm?"

"Apparently there is an age limit on trampolines," Mr. Malone laughed as he slide into the booth so that Sandy was squished between him and Alex. "It's good to see you again, Sam. Steve, it's a pleasure."

"What were you doing on a trampoline? Where the he-, I mean, where did you find room in your yard for a trampoline?" Alex laughed as she scooted closer to the wall to attempt give everyone a little more room. The Malone's had a little place in Queens with a minuscule back yard that would hardly hold a soccer net let alone a trampoline.

"My friend Trinity has one and we went to their place for a barbeque. Dad said that he could do a backflip," Sandy explained, giggling the whole time.

"I did do the backflip," Mr. Malone straightened up and tried to look offended before smiling wide. "I just happened to land on the grass instead of the trampoline."

"Is Trinity going to be in your class?" Alex asked, directing the conversation back to Sandy. The young girl talked almost nonstop, which meant that Steve and Sam couldn't interrogate Alex, Mr. Malone getting a comment in here and there. The men listened to the whole thing good naturedly, not interrupting the flowing commentary.

"Well, that looks like their food, kid." Mr. Malone slid out of the booth. "Come on, we've taken up enough of their time."

"Alex promised to take me to the zoo." Sandy didn't budge from the seat, eyes focused on Alex.

"I did and we will." Alex grabbed Sandy and pressed her into a fierce hug. If there was one thing she had learned, it was to not attempt to out stubborn Sandy Malone. Someone usually ended up crying and it wasn't always Sandy. Besides, she really did want to take her to the zoo.

"You've got karate tomorrow, kiddo. Next weekend should work though," Mr. Malone said as Crystal placed plates down on the table, shifting them around so they were in front of the right people.

"I'll text you and finalize everything later this week." Alex agreed.

This was good enough for Sandy, who stole a piece of bacon before sliding out of the seat. Everyone said goodbyes before tucking into their food. Alex knew it was only a matter of time before one of them started to ask her questions. She could feel his eyes on her now and again, but wasn't going to give in. If they wanted to know something they were going to have to ask.

"Dark haired boyfriend?" Steve asked while he buttered toast.

"She's a child and I brought James here for breakfast once," Alex waved her fork before stabbing a home fry.

"That leads me to one of your more recent bad decisions. It's the reason we stopped back in the first place." Sam reached into his back pocket and pulled out a newspaper. The Daily Bugle met her eyes in bold black type, underneath was written 'Spider-Man at it again. When will this menace cease?'

"I feel like your bad choice in newspapers should be the real topic of this conversation," Alex smiled a little at the memory of the smart-ass in spandex she met the night before. "What does a vigilante have to do with me? Besides, I thought you superhero types had an all for one, one for all mentality."

"Flip it over," Sam motioned with his fork.

Alex shook her head, but did as she was told. There was a photograph underneath the fold, Spider-Man fighting the dark-hair bastard in the alley. The flash of the camera had caught the sparkles of the red dress and earrings of a woman standing in the bottom left corner of the picture. A blonde woman in six-inch heels.

"I was really hoping that it wasn't you. But then I saw that stunning dress on your floor this morning," Sam said around a forkful of food. "Those earrings were a poor choice, they really picked up the flash of the camera."

"That bastard." Alex scanned the picture to see who had gotten credit for the photo. However, the ink had been smeared from the being folded in Sam's pocket, obliterating the name. There was only one person who could have taken this picture, Spider-Man, but why did he sell pictures to the paper that basically called for him to be drawn and quartered daily? It didn't make any sense.

"So, when you said that you had nothing to tell me…" Sam asked over the top of his coffee cup.

"It was nothing, I swear." Alex looked between Steve and Sam, neither of them believing her. "Alright, those three idiots drugged a girl. I went out to make sure that she was okay, that she got into a cab, and got into a little skirmish in the alley. See, nothing crazy here in New York City."

"I'm starting to worry about you meeting with men in back alleys that have superpowers," Steve shook his head as he leaned back against the booth with a sigh.

"Alexandra, what were you thinking? What's going on with you?"

"Not a damn thing, Steven, and don't call me Alexandra." Alex glared at him before she stabbed viciously at the last bit of food on her plate. She knew that she was cranky because of her lack of sleep, but he was still getting on her last nerve. Deep down, she adored Steve, but right now she wasn't really feeling that way.

"So, how 'bout those Yankees?" Sam said after a couple minutes, giving Alex a small smile to show that they were dropping the subject.

"I hate the Yankees," Alex gave him an answering smile before looking at Steve. They stared at one another for a long moment, before he sighed and dropped his head, a small smile on his lips. This conversation wasn't over, just put on hold right now.

The rest of the meal was chatting about the upcoming semester and Alex's new internship. Sam knew that she was going to be working at Stark Tower, Steve had told him, but neither of them had the specifics. When they were done eating, Steve paid for everything. Alex didn't even protest as they had ambushed her.

"So, what about your work out of the country?" Alex asked as they walked back out into the hot morning. "Anything I should know about that?"

"You don't need to know anything about that, especially of the nightmares are back," Sam gave her a pointed look before slipping on his sunglasses.

"But you're going to tell me anyway because you like me and know I'll hound you until someone tells me something." Alex fluttered her eyelashes at him while they stopped on the sidewalk.

"Sam," Steve said when he opened his mouth to give her a smart replay. "I'll take Alex home. You go and get some sleep."

"You look like you need it more than he does," Alex pointed out, anxious about what Steve would want to tell her in private.

Sam and Steve had a silent conversation between themselves before Sam relented. Alex felt her stomach do another somersault. What if the reason Steve looked like he had been run over by a truck was because they knew exactly where James was? What if he was dead? What if he had been taken by Hydra again and was once again on ice or assassinating people? Alex couldn't figure out which of those scenarios would be the worst.

"Hey," Sam walked over and wrapped Alex in a tight hug, almost pull her off her feet. "Don't look so heartbroken about me leaving."

"Is he dead?" Alex whispered into Sam's ear, her voice cracking a little.

"Not as far as I know," Sam rubbed her back with a little laugh "So please take a deep breath."

"You wouldn't lie to me, would you?" Alex laughed as she let go of him and did what he asked.

"Scout's honor I told you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." He rubbed her back for another moment, making sure that she wasn't going to cry. "Now, if that little girl gets a kiss and I don't, I'm going to be heartbroken."

Alex laughed when he said that, reapplied her bright red lipstick, and gave him a sound kiss of the cheek. It did not show up as brilliantly on his dark skin as it did on Sandy's cheek, but it was clearly outlined.

"You have my number if you need anything," Sam said before he hailed a cab.

Alex waited until he disappeared into the bright yellow car before turning to look at Steve. He was leaning against the wall, looking at her a little wearily. Even with Sam's reassurance, she had a feeling that this wasn't going to be a comfortable conversation.


	5. Chapter 5

Steve and Alex didn't say anything as they walked slowly down the sidewalk, the late summer haze starting to settle over the city. It didn't matter that September was only a couple days away, the heat was refusing to let up and Alex felt her hair start to stick to the side of her face and back of her neck. Whether it was the dog days of summer or global warming, Alex was wondering if they were going to get a fall this year, or descend from inferno right into frozen hell.

"Is this yours?" Alex asked as Steve stopped next to a motorcycle, digging the keys out of his pocket. It was a beautiful Harley-Davidson WLA, though she couldn't tell if it was a restored 1942 or if it was just one manufactured to look like it. The only reason that Alex knew the model was because her grandfather always proudly told her what type it was when he showed her the picture he took with Captain America after he saved him back during WWII. The coloring was a neutral black, but it somehow fit Steve perfectly.

"Yeah, kind of impractical in New York City, but better than taking the subway," Steve shrugged as he gracefully threw his leg over the seat and settled down, resting one hand on the handlebar

"I'm not exactly dressed for a ride," Alex pointed out, but bunched up her skirt as ladylike as possible and slid behind him on the seat. "If I flash everyone in the city, it's totally your fault."

"We can take the subway if you want," Steve said over his shoulder as Alex finished tucking her skirt as much as possible and put her flip-flops in the right place. "I can always come back and get the bike later."

"When have I ever backed down from something just because it wasn't a good idea," Alex laughed as she put on the helmet that had been strapped to the back and wrapped her arms around his waist, fitting snugly against him. "Just please don't crash or I am going to lose most of my skin and possibly a couple toes."

Alex felt Steve laugh more than heard him as the motorcycle roared to life. When she was sixteen, Alex had almost run off and joined a motorcycle gang, so this was not the first time she had been on the back of a bike. Still, there was a wonderful rush as they pulled out into traffic and cruised slowly through New York traffic toward her apartment. There was still some anxiety about what Steve wanted to talk about, but there was something very comfortable about riding with him. There was something very comfortable about Steve even if they were usually bickering with one another.

However, like most things, it couldn't last. Soon Raymond was pulling the door open for the both of them. Alex said a silent thank-you that Henry wasn't still working or he would ask why she left with one man and then showed up with another. He had become a grandfatherly figure to Alex since she moved into the building, whether she liked it or not. As they waited for the elevator, she realized that it was never a question about whether he was going to come up to her apartment or not.

"I like the new place," Steve said as he slowly walked through the apartment, hands in his jeans pockets.

"Are you going to tell me what you want to talk about or are we going to continue the small talk?" Alex walked over and threw the windows open, letting the slightly cooler air in just to give her something to do. "Is James…is he alright?"

"I have no idea," Steve let out a long sigh as he leaned against the counter in the kitchen and scrubbed his hand over his face. "Every lead we've gotten has just come to a dead end. I wanted to ask you if you'd heard from him, away from Sam."

"Why away from Sam?" Alex felt off balance at the turn in this conversation, walking over and leaning against the counter next to him. "I thought that he was your right hand man in this investigation."

"He is, he is, it's just…" Steve closed his eyes looking completely exhausted. "Since the beginning, he's not been completely sure that spending all this time and risking our lives to save Buck is worth it. While it's been a while since any bodies have dropped with the Winter Soldier's signature, Sam still thinks that this is more to stop a killer from doing anything horrid than to save Bucky."

Alex didn't say anything to that, just hopped up onto the counter. While her conversations with Sam had been few and far between, it sounded like Steve had been dragging him all over God's green earth in search of James. He didn't always sound happy about it, but she didn't sense him harboring any sense of ill-will toward Steve or James. At times, he even sounded like he was enjoying himself. She always figured that Sam was just more worried about Steve than he was about James, which was completely understandable.

"Don't think I didn't realize you didn't answer my question. I know you said that you'd tell me if you heard from him, but you also try and protect him, which leads all of us into trouble." Steve looked at her with a soft smile, eyes a little livelier.

"I don't lead anyone into trouble, it just kind of…finds me." Alex laughed as she smiled over at him. At this point, it was probably a fifty-fifty split between trouble finding her and her doing stupid thing all on her own. There was a reason she got a tattoo with that particular Russian saying on it, trouble never comes alone when she's involved.

"Is that how you ended up on the front page of the Daily Bugle, sheer coincidence? Wrong place at the wrong time?" Steve was smiling from ear to ear now, some of the tension relaxing out of his shoulders.

"I might have helped trouble along a little bit in that particular instance, I will admit that," Alex smiled back at him.

"So, are you going to answer my question or not?" Steve asked after a few moments.

"I haven't heard from him." Alex looked down at her feet, taking a couple deep breaths. "And the reason you didn't ask me this over the phone and decided to ambush me at breakfast was…let me guess. You thought that you'd be able to know if I was telling the truth if you saw me in person. It's smart on your part, but I can lie just as well in person as I can over the phone."

"That is exactly what worries me," Steve laughed. "However, I hope that seeing me would make you listen to your conscience and not lie right to my face."

"You keep telling yourself that, Rogers." Alex smiled as she bumped into his shoulder.

Alex did have a conscience, it just wasn't exactly as vocal as the devil on her shoulder seemed to be. She attempted not to lie more than the situation called for, but the problem was she kept getting into situations that required a lot of lying. Still, she would feel bad if she lied to Steve without a good reason. There was also those unfair puppy dog eyes that he gave her when he found out that she had lied, which shouldn't even be possible for a century old soldier to possess.

"I'm just…I'm starting to wonder if I should stop looking for him," Steve was talking more to himself than to Alex. "There haven't been any contracts that we've heard about. True, they could be made to look like accidents, but he could be peaceful somewhere, living a good life. Why should I mess that up? If I just knew…knew that he wasn't out there confused and alone, maybe I could let him go again."

"I've…I can't say I haven't thought the same thing." It had been one of the main topics she kicked around her head during a lot of her sleepless nights. "If you find him, if anyone finds him, they're going to kill him or make him stand trial. Even if he didn't have a choice in the matter, he killed people. It might…it might be better if he's never found."

They sat in silence after that, wrapped in their own thoughts. That was one of the nice things about Steve, Alex didn't have to explain to him how she felt about James, he just understood. To say their feelings were similar would be insulting to the bond that Steve and James shared, but they understood one another. At times, Alex even felt a little ridiculous that she was so affected by his absence while Steve continued on almost unaffected in his daily life. Then again, Steve was allowed to do something to try find James, even if he didn't want to be found. That wasn't an option for Alex.

There was also a part of her that believed it was her fault he was gone. After the week of chaos, Alex told him to leave, that she couldn't live always in danger. He had agreed with her, but as the months wore on, it became more and more clear that she had made a mistake. There was no way she could let go of James, no matter how much she tried. He haunted her.

"Well, since I have your undivided attention." Alex shook herself and looked over at Steve. "What exactly did you tell everyone at Stark Tower about me?"

"What do you mean?" Steve looked genuinely startled by the question.

"Well, Miss Hill was most curious about me because of what happened last Fall and Doctor Banner also wanted to know how we knew each other. Apparently, we're the gossip of the Tower," Alex explained.

"I…I might have mentioned you a few times, but I didn't think that it was over the top." Steve was so baffled that Alex couldn't help busting out laughing.

"I'm sorry, I am," Alex said as she attempted to get herself together, wiping tears out of her eyes, "but you just looked so confused that people thought you might be somewhat interested in me. I mean I know you're out of my league, but your face…"

Alex dissolved into another fit of laughter. She had no idea why she found it so funny, probably because she was sleep deprived, but she couldn't pull herself together. While it had been a little annoying while it was happening, at least those gossipers thought that she could catch the attention of someone like Steve. Then again, they really didn't know anything about her.

"I'm sorry that they've been bothering you," Steve said, laughing a little as he watched her hold her sides. "Nat and Hill have been giving me a hard time for months, trying to get me on a date. I really didn't expect anything from Banner though."

"It's kind of flattering, honestly. You could do so much better than me, that's for sure." Alex got herself under control, hopping off the counter to get water from the fridge. "When was the last time that you had a date if your coworkers are attempting to set you up with people?"

"Depends, why are you asking about my love life? Know someone who's interested?" Steve asked as he grabbed the water bottle Alex offered him. "And either you have too high of an opinion of me or too low of an opinion of yourself to think that I'm out of your league."

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Rogers," Alex said with a smile.

Steve's phone started to ring before he could retort. Steve gave her a look, but when he saw the readout, all the playfulness dissolved with a heavy sigh. It was a very cryptic and single syllable conversation on Steve's end. However, Alex watched Steve's body language shift from companion to combat mode, expression sharp and focused. It was a very short conversation that ended with another large sigh.

"Careful or that shirt is going to pop right off you," Alex smiled. "The world need saving again?"

"Duty does appear to be calling." Steve gave her a small smile.

"Before you go," Alex said as they walked toward the front door, "what have you told everyone about last fall? We need to have similar lies."

"Just that you got into some trouble with a guy and needed so help. Never really said where we met, so the restaurant works fine, just that you needed somewhere to lay low. The Hydra stuff was a separate matter."

"So you were my white knight saving me from a guy? No wonder they think we're dating," Alex laugh as he stepped out into the hallway.

"Take care of yourself, Alex. You have my number if you need anything."

"Yes, sir," Alex gave a little salute and a wink before closing the door.

The rest of the weekend was a bit of a blur between getting ready for classes, nightmares, and attempting to get some sleep. When Monday morning rolled around, it was a replay of the nightmare she had a couple nights before. Alex had only gotten a half an hour of sleep, Markus being the main feature in her unconscious battles. He had been particularly brutal and cruel. By the time her alarm went off to go running, she had been wide awake for hours, too tired to move and too afraid to fall back asleep.

Unfortunately, Alex had dozed off on the couch and that resulted in her literally running to campus in an attempt to make her eight o'clock biochemistry class. It wasn't lost on her as she ran down the hallway that it mirrored her dream, minus the blood. If she hadn't been so out of breath, the her comic slide into the room would have made her smile.

"Class begins at eight, not eight-ten miss…?" Professor Warren said without turning from the whiteboard where he was writing.

"Alexandra Harper, and I apologize professor. It won't happen again," Alex said breathlessly, shrugging her bag back up onto her shoulder.

"If it does, it will be points off your final grade. We have a lot of cover and you disrupt the whole class by showing up late. You're an adult, act like it and be punctual." Professor Warren said as he punctuated a sentence with a little more force than necessary.

The only sound in the room was nervous shifting in seats and a few hushed whispers, not the normal giggles that usually followed the reprimands of the professor. Apparently, he had scared everyone sufficiently in those ten minutes she wasn't present. Of course, the eight am class that was going to be a pain in the pass.

"I'm sorry." Alex's words lacked the previous sincerity.

"Alright, well, since you're the last one here – or not." Professor Warren turned toward the sound of the door opening and sneakers squeaking against the linoleum tiles of the lab room. "Class started thirteen minutes ago. If this happens again, you will be docked a point for every minute."

Alex looked over her shoulder to see a very frazzled looking man, spiky brown hair, and a crooked smile even with Professor Warren glaring at him. He slid the backpack strap a little further up his shoulder and spared a glance at the other person in front of the firing squad. His brown eyes got wide and he did a double take as he looked at her. Damn, she must really look bad.

"Sorry, I…I got lost. I'm Peter Parker." Peter rubbed the back of his neck, still smiling.

"I figured as you were the only one who hadn't been checked off my list since the rest of your classmates can tell time." Professor Warren huffed. "There is a lab table in the back, congratulations you're lab partners. That way we can prevent your tardiness from causing anyone else to fail this class."

"Yes sir, of course, sir. Whatever you say sir." Peter gave a little salute to the Professor's back as he headed toward the back of the classroom.

Alex felt Peter's eyes on her as they sat on the black stools at the back of the classroom. The gaze traveled from the earrings to the tattoos peeking out from underneath her white tank top. Only a freshman would be fazed by a fellow student's appearance, though it was a pretty advanced class or an underclassmen. Alex sat next to a dude in a dinosaur onesie for an entire semester her sophomore year. She gave Peter a small smile, letting him know that she wasn't going to bite as she pulled out her notebook.

"Now that the interruptions are over," Professor Warren gave a look over his shoulder. "We shall begin. I suggest that you take notes as no PowerPoints will be used and everything will be fair game on any tests, quizzes, or exams."

"Well, he seems pleasant," Peter whispered to Alex as the lecture continued. "I bet he dresses up as Santa on Christmas."

A smile crept onto Alex's face as she started copying down what was on the board. Peter may be entertaining now, but an immature lab partner could lead to a lot of problems for her. Hopefully, his sense of humor would stop her from throttling him if he didn't hold up this end of the lab work and assignments.

"Just picture it. A little padding on the stomach, red suit, fake beard. Man, he probably lights up all those little kids' lives," Peter continued in a low voice, his hand moving across the page as he took notes and his foot bouncing a mile a minute.

The mental image startled a snort out of Alex, which she attempted to cover up with a cough when Professor Warren looked over his shoulder at the two of them. Alex dropped her head to hide the smile, focusing on her notes. The rest of the class progressed in the same fashion, Peter making quips under his breath and Alex trying not to laugh and draw the ire of the Professor.

Lecture went to the very last minute, which was unheard of and especially cruel for the first class of the semester. Luckily, the lab section was not starting until next week, so Alex could head home, shower, change, and possibly eat before going to Stark Tower for her lie detector test. There had been no time to properly dress that morning so she was just in flip-flops, sweatpants, and a white tank top. She'd die before meeting Miss Hill looking like that.

The stress of trying to get to class on time had pushed the fear about the polygraph test into the back of her mind. Now, just thinking about it, her heart was pounding and palms were sweaty. Alex pulled out her headphones, hoping music would help calm her. Maybe he would call Sam or text Jake as well, someone to tell her to calm the hell down.

"Hey, hey, wait a second," Someone called from the top of the stairwell. Alex and the rest of the crowd to see Peter pushing his way through the mass of bodies on the steps to get to her, waving to make sure that she saw him. Terrified that he was going to tumble down and break his neck, Alex moved to the edge of the landing to wait for him. Every second she waited was one that kept her from making herself presentable for her interview, but she'd rather not have her lab partner suffer grievous bodily harm on her account.

"It's Peter, right?" Alex forced a smile when he made his way to her. People pressed around them attempting to get past, so that Alex and Peter were almost chest to chest. It made their three inch height difference obvious as she tilted her head up to look at him. Still, he was more like a very large puppy with the shining brown eyes and messy hair than anything resembling intimidating.

"Peter Parker," he smiled as he rubbed the back of his neck, almost elbowing someone in the face. "I never got your name, which is why I wanted to stop you before you left. We're lab partners and all, we should probably exchange number and information and all that stuff, right?"

"Can we walk and talk?" Alex asked as a passing shoulder shoved her into Peter. "This isn't exactly the best place to have a conversation."

"Right, yeah, of course." Peter waved his hand, smacking a phone out of someone's grasp and started to apologize profusely as he quickly caught it. He had amazing reflexes.

It was only nine in the morning, but the thunderstorms of the night before had rolled away to greet Alex with two hundred percent humidity along with the eighty degree weather. Peter was still offering apologies to the person he had hit, even though they had stopped listening as soon as their phone was recovered unharmed. Alex slid on her sunglasses and moved out of the flow of traffic while she waited for Peter to finish.

"My name is Alex and if you give me your number, I'll text you so that you can have mine," Alex said with a sigh as she pulled out her phone.

Peter rambled off his number, pausing and tilting his head to the side about halfway through. Alex quickly typed out a text with her name as sirens and car horns could be heard a couple blocks away, the normal music of the city. Peter started to bounce on the balls of his feet, as if he was dying to get somewhere, but he just stood there staring at her. Like he was waiting for something.

"Look, I have somewhere to be." Alex didn't want to be rude, but she didn't have time to babysit a freshman. "Is there anything else that you needed?"

"What, ah, no, not really," Peter gave her a large smile. "I guess I'll see you Wednesday, partner."

"Bye," Alex said to Peter's quickly retreating form.

Alex didn't have time to think about her strange new lab partner as she raced home. There were only a couple minutes to spare as she walked into the busy lobby of Stark Tower. As Alex checked in at the front desk, a group of Asian men standing in the middle of the lobby, all wearing suits, caught her attention. The elevator opened and Virginia Potts walked out, all business, and came to stop with a small bow to the group of men. Alex could only stare, feeling star struck. She had read every news article that had ever been written about Ms. Potts, even the ones that painted her as a gold-digger. Everyone wanted to be Tony Stark, but Alex hoped that one day she could be like Ms. Potts. She had turned Stark Industries into one of the most respected and profitable companies in the world.

"Miss Harper," Alex spun to see Maria Hill had materialized at her side. "Glad to see you again."

"Nice to see you too, Miss Hill," Alex took the outstretched hand and shook it. "I have to admit though, I'm really nervous. I've never taken a polygraph before."  
"I said polygraph because that is what most people know about, but ours is a little more complex." Hill smiled as they two of them made their way toward the elevator. Ms. Potts caught sight of Maria and gave her a smile. Maria did the same, never breaking stride, as the elevator doors silently slid open for them.  
"Those must be very important people for Ms. Potts to meet them personally," Alex said once the door was closed.

"They are representative from South Korea. Stark Industries are looking to open a facility there and hire a very talented Korean geneticist and doctor to work for the company. Those are government officials and owners of an old hospital that they are hoping to convert into modern working facilities," Hill explained. "Ms. Potts is really getting behind the medical division."

"What's the doctor's name? The one that is so impressive?" Alex was blown away at the amount of money that seemed to be at Stark Industries disposal. They were talking to government officials to buy a building halfway around the world and remodel it to hire one promising doctor. It made her head spin.

"Helen Cho. If you haven't heard of her yet, you will." Hill smiled as the elevator continued to rocket upward. "Dr. Banner wants you to have level three clearance, so you can get into the chemical lockers and into some of the more delicate research. You must have made an impression."

"Aren't all interns getting that level of clearance?" Alex made a mental note to look up Helen Cho when she got home. A talented female doctor and geneticists is totally a woman she wanted to know more about.

"Most interns are only given level two clearance," Jarvis's voice cut in, making Alex jump. "I'm glad to see you again, Miss Harper. After looking over your record, it would have been a waste to lose a promising talent."

"Thank you, Jarvis." Alex said a little confused, looking about the elevator, still unsure where to look when she was speaking to the A.I. the sight of Hill smiling at her made Alex blush and face forward.

The elevator doors slid open and they made their way down a hallway lined with offices. Hill's office was decorated in dark blue and silver, but it had definite feminine touches. White plush chairs, a vase with white and pink flowers on the glass desk, and a few bookcases. The wall art was tasteful black and white photographs. There was also a chair in the far corner that was obviously the not-polygraph machine.

"Take a seat over there and relax while I get everything set up," Maria smile as she walked over and tapped away on the computer.

Alex gently sat down on the chair and told herself to breath. If her heart rate didn't get under control, the only thing the machine would be able to pick up would be her eventual heart attack. Maria touched her shoulder and Alex almost jumped out of her skin.

"There's nothing to be worried about, Miss Harper," Hill said as she applied the sensors and went back to settle behind the computer. "You just have to tell the truth."

"I always tell the truth." Alex played with the hem of her skirt. "Well, almost always, most of the time, unless it seems better not to. I'm going to shut up now."  
There were just so many things in Alex's past that she would rather Ms. Hill didn't know about. While it was obvious that she wasn't the girl next door, there were things that weren't on her permanent record that could easily get her terminated and arrested. The goal was just to keep herself employed and not in handcuffs.

"Let's start with something easy," Hill said, a small smile on her face. "Is your name Alexandra Jade Harper?"

"Yes." Alex let out a shaky breath.

"And you were born July 19th 1992?" Hill continued.

"Yes." Alex answered a few more routine questions, probably to get a baseline.

"Have you ever been convicted of a felony?" Hill asked, her voice not changing at all.

"Convicted? No," Alex felt her heart rate jump at the question.

"Have you ever committed a felony?" Hill rose her eyebrow ever so slightly.

"I don't know the whole list of felonies, so I can't be sure," Alex said truthfully, though she shifted ever so slightly. She knew for a fact that she had committed a felony, possibly multiple felonies, was one of those items that hadn't made it onto her record.

"Assault, theft, arson, larceny, that sort of thing," Hill explained patiently.

Alex knew that if she paused for too long, it would look suspicious, but still she paused. She had dated such a long line of criminals, it would have been almost impossible to keep her hands clean. And she hadn't kept her hands cleans and she had to be honest.

"Yes, I have," Alex said after taking a deep breath. "Do you want to know the charges in gory detail?"

"Depends on which felony it was," Hill leaned away from the computer and looked at Alex. Her expression hadn't changed, but her blue eyes seemed to be attempting to pick her apart. Maria was a very terrifying woman.

"Nothing violent, if that's what you want to know," Alex would love to keep her previous activities in the past.

"Stealing a pack of bubblegum as a child? Swiping something from the grocery store? Something like that?" Hill sat up and leaned against the desk, head tilting slightly. "Those aren't really felonies. I'm only interested in your theft added up to a couple thousand dollars."

"I've never stolen that much money," Alex said truthfully. The price of what she stole really didn't have a price. Besides, it wasn't a theft, it was more of a…retrieval job.

The list of ex-boyfriends on the other hand, well, they weren't the ones that were taking the polygraph test. She had never seen any of that money. Well, besides gifts here and there, she had never seen any of the money.

"Anything else should I know about?" Hill asked as she turned back to the monitor.

"Nothing that would jeopardize my work here or the company," Alex said honestly. "Besides, I'm sure you're going to make sure Jarvis keeps an eye on me."  
"Jarvis keeps an eye on everyone, he probably won't pay any special attention to you if he doesn't have reason to. You'd be surprised some of the people that Stark has hired," Hill smiled.

"I don't know if that's supposed to make me feel better or worse," Alex gave a weak laugh.

The interview continued in the same vein. Had she ever gone by another name? Had she ever sold company secrets? Soon, Alex was started to think that her hands weren't all that dirty from all the times that she had been able to say no. Did Stark really hire people who had done all these things?

"Are you currently romantically involved?" Hill asked.

"Why would my employer need to know that?" Alex didn't see what bearing that information had on anything. Alex was going to have to ask Monica if she got the same third degree while she was at Oscorp. Then again, the Avengers didn't fly out of Oscorp.

"We would just need to run a quick background check on him or her to make sure they couldn't exploit your position," Hill explained without batting an eyelash.

"I'm not currently dating anyone, no," Alex answered, but her mind instantly flashed to James. What did romantically involved even mean? True, she wasn't going home and curling up next to James every night, as much as she wished that she was, but she was still very much emotionally involved with him.

"Really? Oh," Hill looked surprised at the response.

"Is that interesting?" Out of everything that they had gone over that day, not having a boyfriend was the only thing that got a response. It was so bizarre.

"Just surprising is all," Maria said as she got up and started to remove the sensors. "As soon as I get these sensors off, we'll be all done."

"How did I do?" Alex asked. Since no one had come in and dragged her out of the room kicking and screaming, it must not have been too bad. However, that didn't mean she was going to get clearance to work in the Tower.

"You're expected to be here on Wednesday at one for orientation. We'll have a badge waiting for you at the front desk," Hill said with a smile as she settled down in her seat once again. "I'm guessing you can find your way out as I won't always be around to make sure you get where you need to go."

"I think I can manage, thank you, Miss Hill." Alex was smiling like an idiot, but she really didn't care as she left the office. As she hit the down button for the elevator, Alex let out a deep breath. Finally, things were getting back on track.


	6. Chapter 6

That optimistic feeling Alex had lasted about twenty minutes once she had gotten back to her apartment. Michael Sousa had called at that point to give her an update about what was going on with the alley case. It was a short call, he was in court for another case, but stated that all three of the men were released on bail. Apparently their fathers were not at all happy that their sons had been charged with sexual assault and had paid good money so that they weren't introduced to the general population at a correctional facility. Michael made it evident that this was not information Alex should have before he hung up the phone.

By the time orientation came along on Wednesday, Alex's life was completely out of control again. Her first Russian class had sent her academic anxiety spiraling out of control, not to mention the rest of her classwork. There were also the ever present nightmares, which lead to her having a lot of trouble concentrating during the boring orientation presentations.

"Alright, does anyone have any questions?" Maria Hill asked the group of ten that she had been showing around the Tower for two hours. There were two other groups being taken around by other staff members, but somehow Alex had ended up with Maria. She was starting to wonder if she was being watched for a reason.

There was just some shuffling of feet and a small cough. A lot of information had been thrown at them between the basic lab rules and the administrative side of things, but Alex was too tired to try and process it. Alex hadn't had time to grab coffee or an energy drink between class and getting to the Tower, so she was just kind of existing at the moment.

"Well, then, since you're all apparently geniuses, we're done for the day. On Friday, you'll meet with your project leaders and be given specific assignments. Then there will be more detailed orientations by your task supervisors. Now," Ms. Hill stopped when the elevator door opened and Tony Stark walked out. "Mr. Stark. What a surprise."

"I always like to greet the new batch of interns that are taking my money," Tony said with a smile.

"I know, Mr. Stark. That's why you were supposed to meet us in the lobby, two hours ago," Ms. Hill's smile only had a hint of strain in it.

"Right, well…" Tony shrugged. "I got wrapped up in something. This group understands what that's like."

There were some murmurs of agreement, but mostly it was just wide-eyes expressions. Alex was part of the wide-eyed group. There was something surreal seeing Tony Stark standing there in worn jeans and an old AC/DC T-shirt. In public, he was always in well-manicured suits that cost more than she made in a couple months, yet here he seemed almost normal. Hill just rolled her eyes and looked down at her clipboard.

"Anyway, many of you will be in the clean energy division of Stark Industries. You'll be helping Ms. Potts and myself get arch reactor technology out into the world in a cheap and efficient manner. The last couple of you bright minds have been recruited by Dr. Banner to work in the medical division. All of you will be trying to save the world, which is something I know absolutely nothing about."

That got a couple laughs out of the group. Alex looked around, not realizing that the medical division was an even smaller group than the thirty people she had seen earlier. Still, all of them looked older, more mature, and that made her feel self-conscious. That was something she hadn't felt in a long time and it was a rather uncomfortable feeling.

"I'm hoping to have a chance to speak to each of you personally at some point," Mr. Stark continued, which got another eye roll out of Hill. "Today, I just wanted to say hi to you all. It's always good to know the guy that signs your checks."

"That's it for today everyone, be back here on Friday for the second part of your orientation." Maria Hill walked over and hit the down elevator button and waved the interns through the opened door. "Mr. Stark, since I have you, there are a few things I need to discuss with you."

The interns whispered amongst themselves as they moved in a solid mass into the elevator, eyes glued onto Mr. Stark. Alex got pushed to the back of the group, which was fine since she didn't want to draw attention to herself. There was no reason to try and make friends with anyone until she knew who was in the medical division, but she did want to try and make friends. Apparently normal people had a whole set of them by their senior year in college and all Alex had was Monica.

"Miss Harper, could you also stay behind a moment? I have a couple other papers that I need you to sign," Hill said as Alex was halfway in the crowded elevator.

All the eyes left Mr. Stark and shifted over to her.

"Miss Harper, if you could step out of the path of the door so it could close, that would be appreciated," Jarvis's voice came over the elevator speakers.

Alex withdrew her foot and turned her back on the rest of the interns. As the elevator doors closed, she felt all their eyes on her. Literally, the last thing she wanted to do was set herself apart from the rest of the interns, but it wasn't like she could ignore the request either. It took a couple seconds for Alex to remember to breathe as she walked back over to Tony and Maria.

"The results of the lie detector test were satisfactory and therefore I just need you to sign a couple more papers before receiving the level three clearance," Hill tapped away on her tablet before spinning it around to face Alex. "Mr. Stark there are a couple of threats that need to be assessed, final signatures on a couple grants, and invitations that need to be accepted or denied."

"Level three? Why does she need level three?" Tony asked, his brown eyes assessing Alex as if he was running some sort of calculation in his head.

"You'll have to discuss that with Dr. Banner," Hill said vaguely as Alex quickly signed in an attempt to get away from them as fast as possible. "However, Steve Rogers also holds her in high regard."

"Steve?" Tony was now looking her up and down, finger on his chin. "Not exactly who I expected him to be interested in. He always seemed to be more into the cute girl next door, like volunteer at soup kitchens type. You aren't giving me that vibe."

"That's probably because we met at work and it doesn't matter what type of vibe I have," Alex explained, giving Hill a look that stated if she said anything, Alex was going to be pissed. It wasn't that she thought Hill would be at all intimidated by her, more just to let her know Alex was displeased.

"Still, he's tall, blond, a hero, in peak physical condition, and had the added bonus of looking good in spandex," Tony laughed. "True, he's a bit too old for almost everyone and can be an overbearing ass, but those are minor details. He's a good catch."

"It sounds like you might want to date him, Mr. Stark." Alex tilted her head to the side and smiled at her employer before looking at Maria. "Is there anything else you need from me?" "Not at the moment, Miss Harper. Enjoy the rest of your day," Maria smiled.

Luckily the elevator showed up the moment Alex hit the button and she quickly slipped inside. As the door closed, Alex risked looking back down the hallway. Both Maria and Tony had coy smiles, which was better than them looking upset. Still, Alex was going to have to warn Steve that more people were interested in how they had come to know one another. Also, he really needed to stop talking about her before the entire Tower wanted to know the gory details of their non-existent love life.

"Alex," Steve said, standing in the lobby with his finger on the up button when the elevator doors opened, as if summoned by her thoughts. He didn't look as if he had gotten any sleep since the last time she had seen him, bags under his eyes large and dark.

"Steve," Alex stepped out of the elevator, hoping that somehow that would stop Jarvis from seeing them, even though she knew there were cameras all over the building. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm heading upstairs to hopefully get some sleep finally." Steve put his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. She attempted not to be offended by his lack of enthusiasm or warmth at seeing her, it looked as if the super soldier was almost completely out of the super.

"You live here?" Alex really hadn't thought about where Steve lived. Obviously he has to sleep somewhere, though obviously he hadn't been recently, but she never thought to ask where he laid his head. Then again, usually when they were together, there was some sort of crisis they needed to solve so sleeping arrangements would have been a little silly to ask about.

"Well, I gave up my lease in D.C. after S.H.I.E.L.D fell, so I guess so. I've been looking for a place in Brooklyn, but nothing is coming up that is actually affordable." Steve was in a plain white t-shirt and jeans, ball cap over his blonde hair. He hadn't been out saving the world looking like that, so what had he been up to? Better question, why did she care so much?

"Are you coming upstairs or not? I kind of want to at least sit down," Steve said when Alex was still mulling over why she wanted to know where Captain America slept at night.

"We're already the gossip of the Tower, I don't think we should feed that particular fire, do you?" Alex smile as she looked around to see who was paying attention to them, pulling herself back to the present. "I'm sure Jarvis has already told Mr. Stark that we're talking and he's listening to the whole conversation with a bowl of popcorn."

"Well, can I at least get a hug, or are you worried that's far too personal? Should we settle for a handshake?" Steve extended his hand, smiling wide.

Alex laughed, ignoring the hand as she moved around it and went in for a hug. Steve responded immediately, hugging her tightly to his chest. It was a quick hug, completely friendly, but it still comforted Alex all the way down to her bones. He also smelled unfairly good. Obviously he showered more than he slept. They parted ways without another word, because sometimes you just don't need all that small talk.

Wednesday morning might have been rough, but her Thursday's Russian lecture made her want to cry. While she had gotten a little more sleep, the course material was close to impossible. Alex was not a genius by any means, but she had never felt so out of her depth when learning anything before. As a student that relied on an academic scholarship to be able to afford her tuition, this was enough to make her want to vomit. It wasn't too late to drop out of the class, but a small part of her couldn't bring herself to do that. Learning this language, it was the most she could do to be close to James. It was convoluted and idiotic, but she had to do it.

That anxiety and the nightmares meant that fifteen minutes into her Friday biochemistry lecture she was dozing off. The first time she started to drift, Peter accidently bumped into her. The next time, he tapped her with his pencil, which was obviously deliberate. However, even with Peter's valiant efforts and Professor Warren's interesting lecture, Alex could barely stay on her stool.

"Miss Harper, am I boring you? If so, you're free to leave the class and take the nap you so desperately need. Or you can come up and teach the class if you'd prefer, if I'm the problem." Professor Warren's voice cut through the room, making Alex jump and make a nice line through her notes.

"No, Professor, I don't think you're the problem. Besides, my handwriting isn't as neat as yours," Alex sat up straighter, hoping that her joke would win her some points, but Warren just blinked. "I'm just not used to eight a.m. class yet is all. I'm sorry."

"There are sections of this class taught at noon and two. Maybe think about switching to those classes if the mornings are too difficult. If you fall asleep in my class again, you will be asked to leave and you'll be marked as absent." Professor Warren met her eye for another beat, sending a shiver down her spine, before turning his back and continuing the lecture.

Alex attempted to look sheepish for a moment, but failed miserably. An exacting professor normally wouldn't bother her, but it seemed as if Professor Warren had it out for her and Peter just because they showed up to the first class late. The feeling of dislike was starting to become mutual. At least the anger and bit of embarrassment helped her stay awake.

Peter's notebook slid across the lab table. Alex pushed it back across to his side, annoyed that Peter couldn't seem to stay still. If his foot wasn't bouncing, his fingers were tapping against his leg, like the energizer bunny on drugs. The notebook came back into her space. Alex looked over at Peter, but he didn't take his eyes off of Warren, pencil moving across the page of another notebook. Then there was just a small tilt of his head down to the notebook at her elbow.

You alright? Peter had written on the margins of his notes with a tall, narrow script.

Alex was really hoping that Peter wasn't developing a crush on her. That was literally the last thing she needed right now. There was nothing worse than a lab partner fawning over you when you were just trying not to fail. Warren's eyes came toward the table again as she looked up from the message. Alex met his gaze as she pushed the notebook back to Peter without writing anything back. It was better not to encourage him, even if he was just attempting to be friendly. Still, throughout class, Peter kept her awake with a number of pokes with his pencil.

"Are there crazy Thursday night parties that I'm not getting invited to? Or did you just not have your coffee this morning?" Peter asked when they collected their things after their lab section. It was thankfully not taught by Warren and they were let out early.

"Thank you for keeping me awake." Alex stretched. If she didn't start getting some sleep, she was going to fail biochemistry before they got to the first assignment.

"It isn't selfless. I wouldn't put it past Warren to fail both of us if you fall asleep. It's self-preservation." Peter smiled as they walked out of class together. "You want to grab some food or coffee or something? Get to know each other better?"

"Sorry, Parker. I have to get to my internship. You'll be seeing more than enough of me when we start doing assignments," Alex held up her hand to say goodbye, not having the patience for a potentially love sick underclassman. To her surprise, Peter reached out and grabbed her hand, holding onto it.

"Are you in any trouble? Is something…I don't know…scaring you?" Peter's eyes were focused and sincere.

"Parker, if you worry about every kid that falls asleep in class, your heart is going to fail before the end of the semester." Alex took her hand back and gave him a smile. "It's really sweet that you asked, but I'm fine."

"I was going for concerned and earnest, not sweet and slightly creepy," Peter laughed as he rubbed the back of his neck. "If you need something, let me know? Seriously, anything. We are partners, after all."

"See you later Parker," Alex smiled before joining the group of student heading out of the building. Did she really look like she attracted that much trouble? Worse, did she always look so frightened and unsure? Hell, she had even put in an effort that morning with a black pencil skirt and red blouse and black flats because of having to go to the Tower right after class.

Luckily, Alex had no trouble staying awake at Stark Tower while they were introduced to the medical division lab and it's procedures. It helped that they were on their feet for most of the time. On the subway back to her apartment, Alex started thinking about Peter again. She really hoped that it was just a little bit of harmless flirting on his part, if she was reading the situation right. She didn't want to crush his heart while they were dealing with chemicals and notes that were written while she were half asleep, but there were worse things in the world. In any case, that was a Monday problem, and she had enough Friday problems to tackle.

Alex dropped the moment that she got home, assignments be damned. For the first time since getting back to the city, she didn't have a single nightmare. Something else woke her at three in the morning and she couldn't make herself go back to sleep.

By three-thirty she gave up completely and checked her phone. There was a missed call and a voicemail waiting for her. It said it was an unknown number and the voicemail was nothing, just background noise and heavy breathing. Someone had drunk dialed her. She erased the message before pulling on her running gear. It wasn't exactly safe to run that early in the morning, but she took her normal route to Madison Square Park anyway.

As she rounded the corner, she noticed another jogger out before even the birds were awake coming up behind her quickly. While it was weird for someone else to be out, Alex really didn't pay much attention to him since most guys liked to blast past her because it helped their egos. Maybe there was a marathon somewhere he was training for. Alex matched her pace to her music, Britney Spears You Better Work Bitch, and moved out of the way.

The jogger came up beside her, but instead of going past, he matched her pace. Fear sent adrenaline through her veins and Alex picked up her pace. The other jogger matched her again. Alex started to look around for escape routes and weapons at her disposal. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that the jogger looked familiar and turning her head, she was greeted by the smiling face of Peter Parker.

"Peter, what the fuck?" Alex stopped dead and ripped her headphones out. "What, are you stalking me? You're lucky I didn't have Mace on me. What the actual fucking hell?"

"I didn't mean to scare you." Peter held out his hands, showing he meant no harm, and took a step back. "I was just out running and saw you and decided to say hi. I guess I should have thought that it would come off as weird, but in my defense, I did call your name and you didn't answer. It's really not safe to be out here by yourself, especially with your music turned up so high. Maybe you need a jogging partner, someone to watch your back."

"You kind of ramble on, has anyone ever told you that?" Alex said when Peter finally paused for a breath, starting to walk so that her legs didn't cramp up. "What the hell are you doing out this early? Do you live around here?"

"People have mentioned that once or twice, but no I don't really live around here." Peter shrugged as he followed beside her easily. "You know, you might not be so tired in class if you didn't go running so early."

"You know, you might not live anywhere if you keep making comments about how I chose to spend my time. Besides, you're out here at this ungodly hour, possibly stalking me. Also, how are you not sweating to death in a hoodie and sweatpants?" While the whole situation was odd, Alex couldn't bring herself to think of Peter as an actual threat. He just looked so likable and harmless. Was he annoying? Absolutely, but not a threat. Still, the whole situation was bizarre.

"Oh, my outfit, well, I…I just started jogging and I'm still trying to figure out how to do it properly, you know? I thought the more you sweat the better." Peter scrubbed his hand through his hair, flashing some sort of red long sleeve under armor that was underneath the sweater, as he looked around. "Maybe we could be running partners or something? You could share some tips with me and I could make sure no one bothered you."

"The only person that is bothering me is you, Parker. I'm more than capable of taking care of myself," Alex flicked her ponytail out of her face and started to jog again. "I'm going to finish jogging now, alone. See you tomorrow."

"I'm serious about the jogging partner thing," Peter called after her. "You have my number. Sorry to scare you"

Alex was still attempting to figure out what Peter's deal was when she got back to her apartment building. There may have been a perfectly harmless explanation as to why he was on her jogging route at four in the morning, but that didn't sit right with Alex. Luckily, she knew a police officer and a couple of superheroes. Maybe a background check was in order for her lab partner, just to satisfy her curiosity.

Since it was Saturday and Alex didn't have any plans, she showered and attempted to get caught up on assignments. The anxiety about already being behind during the first week didn't lessen through another Russian lecture. By the time she returned to her couch, she was contemplating getting a tutor. Her brain just didn't seem able to wrap around the language.

Alex almost didn't pick up her phone when it started to vibrate as it lay on her stomach later that night contemplating that cross country trip Jake had mentioned during one of theirs conversations. She didn't open her eyes as she accepted the call and put the phone up to her ear."Hello?" she muttered into the phone, her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth due to laying there with her mouth open for some time.

"Alexandra?"

There was a lot of static on the other end of the line, but the way the man pronounced her voice made her sit straight up and her heart to stop. Usually she didn't like her full name, but there was only one person who said her name like that. Said it in a way that made it sound special and as if it actually belonged to her. Every time Alex attempted to speak, to answer the question, words got stuck in her throat. It was as if her heart was pressed against her vocal cords. It couldn't be him. She had to be dreaming.

Whoever was on the other line didn't say anything else, but she could still hear breathing so she knew he hadn't hung up. It couldn't be him, he was halfway around the world, if he was alive at all. Either way, why would he call her, why now? What the hell was going on? Maybe this was just a cruel prank, but who knew about him that would be that awful to her? In the end, there was only one way to find out.

"James?" Alex's question was barely a whisper, probably swallowed by the static. There was a pause on the other end of the line and Alex opened her mouth to speak again when the call disconnected.

"No, no, no, no." Alex looked at the phone, willing him to call back. Her hands were shaking as she was looking down at the screen. It couldn't be James. Why would he call her and then hang up? Was he the other two calls of silence that she had received?

The phone started ringing again. Alex stabbed the accept call so fast her finger hurt.

"James?"

"No, Michael," the police officer said slowly on the other line, obviously confused. "Is everything alright? You sound upset."

Not a damn thing was alright. Alex tried to take a deep breath and calm down, but it came out in a shaky little gasp. If it was James on the other line, and something deep in her bones was telling her that it was, why had he called her? He hadn't sounded injured, but maybe a bit confused? Alex knew she should take solace in the fact that he was alive, but it just set off a thousand other questions in her head.

"Alex?" Michael's voice was tentative as he said her name, but there was that edge of urgency that they must teach every cop at the academy. "Alex, is something wrong? Are you in trouble?"

"What? Oh, yeah, something is wrong, but nothing you need to worry about. Just some guy trouble. Is there something you needed?" Alex closed her eyes and tried to focus on Michael's voice. She needed to ground herself in the present or everything was going to spiral out of control.

"Alexandra, no offense, but your guy trouble led to arraignment hearings in my experience. Do you need me to come over or have a patrol drive by?" The tentativeness was out of his voice now, it was now a mixture of protectiveness and cop gruffness.

"Don't call me that," Alex sighed as she tried to get herself together. "No, I don't need any sort of protection. This particular man isn't even in the country as far as I know."

"Okay, well…" Michael didn't sound convinced at all.

"Was there something that you needed?" Alex needed a couple shots and an entire chocolate cake.

"I just wanted to give you an update about the bastards for the Marquee club," Michael sounded a bit more like himself now, but there was still wariness to his voice. "While there should be no way they know who you are, charges are being pressed which means that your name is going to show up in the police reports handed over to the lawyers. I'd hate to think they'd be stupid enough to come looking for you, but…"

"I'll keep my eyes out, thanks Michael." Alex's voice sounded as defeated as she felt at that moment. "Is there anything else?"

"You know I'm worried about you, right? Like, you can hear that in my voice, right?" Michael's voice had a bit of a laugh in it, but he did sound worried. "Do you need me to stop by, just to check in on things and make you feel a bit better?"

"That's sweet Michael, but I'm good. However, if you want to do something for me, I have someone I want you to run a background check on. Names Peter Parker and he goes to NYU with me, not sure of his major, but he's in my Biochem class." Alex attempted to sound chipper, but failed miserable. Michael was a sweet guy, but there was nothing he could go to make her feel better. Right now, she couldn't bring herself to care about the rich white rapists or Peter for that matter. All her thoughts were focused on James.

"Should I ask why?" While he sounded weary, Alex could hear him writing the name down.

"He's my lab partner, seems sweet, but given my history…" Alex was more curious than concerned, but figured it was something to keep Michael from worrying about her.

"I'll look into it and let you know what I find."

After hanging up with Michael, Alex pressed the edge of her phone against her mouth and tried to figure out what to do next. It was pretty clear what she should do, Alex had just had a conversation with Steve about the promise she made him, but it still felt like betraying James. He had called her, obviously James wanted something from her. She couldn't help him if she didn't know where he was and Steve had the equipment to find him. At least that is what she told herself.

"'ello?" The voice on the other end sounded groggy, like she had woken him up.

"Steve," Alex's voice cracked and she tried to keep it together.

"Alex, what is it?" Steve's voice was suddenly alert and she heard him move across the phone.

Alex shouldn't even be bother Steve with this. He dealt with world ending catastrophes, not calls that might not even be James. Hell, Steve might not even be in the country for all she knew. Still, last time that she hadn't told Steve what was going on, an alien artifact had tried to take over her brain. Alex told herself to just take a deep breath and spit it out, damn it.

"I…I think I just got a call from him." Tears were running down Alex's face before she even realized she was crying. She flicked them away, annoyed. "He wasn't on the phone long, if it was him at all, but he sounded confused."

The other end of the line was quiet for what seemed like forever. So long, that Alex pulled the phone away from her ear to make sure that the call hadn't dropped. The display said that the call was still connected and pressing it to her ear again, there was faint static on the other end of the line. That probably meant that Steve wasn't jumping out of an airplane, but it didn't mean he was somewhere that he could talk freely.

"What did he say? Do you have the number?" Steve asked, his voice guarded.

"Are you alright?" Alex asked, not sure how much information to give over the phone while Steve was acting so cagey.

"I'm at the Tower and the walls literally have ears," Steve explained.

"If you're in the Tower why is there static? " Alex knew that she was getting off topic, but nothing was really making sense today.

"Static?" Steve didn't say anything for a moment, but then just sighed. "I don't know, but what did he say and do you have a number?"

"The number was blocked and the call was only a couple minutes, if that. You are the one that's friends with Stark and super spies, I figured you could get my phone records and do something with that information." Alex sensed that there was an edge in her voice and took a deep breath. "Steve…he sounded scared."

"Hey, I'll look into it, I promise," Steve's voice warmed up a little, though it was obvious that he was also worried. "Just…try not to worry too much."

"Steve, have you met me?" Alex gave a weak laugh, which sounded a little like a sob, as she flopped back on the couch. There was a dull, pounding ache was in the middle of her chest, making it difficult to breathe.

"I'll call you when I know something, okay?" Someone called Steve's name in the background. "Try not to drive yourself crazy, alright?"

"Too late," Alex muttered to the dead phone line.


	7. Chapter 7

Blood splattered onto Alex's face as she attempted to get air into her lungs, something heavy pressing down on her chest so that her ribs creaked from the strain. The cold pavement at her back was just as unyielding as the metal hand that was crushing her windpipe. James's blue eyes were dead, emotionless, as her hand came up and swung at his face, trying to snap him out of it, trying to make him bleed more, trying to stay alive. It was useless, he was far too strong, but it was human nature to struggle against death. Black dots started to cloud her vision and her limbs grew heavy.

Then the weight was gone from her chest and Alex took in a deep breath, which quickly turned into a series of coughs. As the dots cleared from her vision, Alex rolled onto her side to see Steve and James going head to head in some grimy back alley. The same alley where Markus had attacked her the year before. The two super soldiers were matching each other blow for powerful blow, neither showing any sign of hesitation as blood flew from their lips and fists. .  
Alex attempted to get her breath back, but the panic and crushed windpipe made it impossible. There was not enough air for her to to even scream at them to stop. Her muscles wouldn't listen to her brain's commands, making it impossible to get her legs underneath her. She needed to get one of the men to see reason, to stop this, but Steve and James kept splattering each other's blood on the brick walls and asphalt with a fierceness that scared her.

Steve. Steve would see reason if she snapped him out of this. He would figure out what to do. If only her damn lungs would work to call out to him. It seemed like years before she shailky got to her feet, the wall cold and slimy underneath her hand. She just needed to get to them before it was too late.

The sound of metal on metal brought Alex's attention back to the men as James wrenched the shield out of Steve's grasp. It was deftly tossed to his other hand as the metal hand lashed out again, punching right through Steve's chest. The blood stained the shining silver as James literally ripped out Steve's heart in front of Alex's eyes.  
"No!" Alex screamed as she sat straight up in her bed, panting, sweating, and shaking.

Alex's heart was pounding so hard that her sternum hurt and panic was clawing at her chest. She closed her eyes for a second, but then she saw Steve dying again. His blue eyes wide as his blood leaked out of a giant hole in his chest. Her eyes flew open and she scrambled for her phone, needing to call Steve and hear his voice. Something to tell her brain that he was actually okay.

The white numbers saying that it was four-thirty in the morning stopped Alex from making the call. Instead, she attempted to work through the grounding techniques that Sam had taught her. It took longer than it should have to get her heart rate under control. It felt as if she had run a marathon.

Five and a half hours of sleep were more than she had gotten recently, so Alex got out of bed. She threw the window open and sat on the window sill, the cool wind drying the sweat from her skin, and looked at the screen on her phone. The walls were very thick in this old building so she hoped that no one else was woken up by her dream. Honestly, the fact that she hadn't been slapped with a noise complaint was a bit of a miracle. Maybe everyone else in the building was taking sleeping pills. Perhaps she should join them in drugged out oblivion.  
If Alex called Sam, he'd be there within half an hour, if he was in the country. Yet, she didn't want to keep waking him up to babysit her. He had his own life. Instead, she closed the window, got dressed, and went running.

Alex let her mind go blank and just focused on the feeling of her feet on the pavement. It was almost an hour later when she realized that she had been sprinting, chest heaving painfully and sweating like a pig. By the time she stumbled back into the building, everything ached, and she didn't feel any better. A shower and breakfast helped a little, but as soon as it was normal human time, she texted Steve. He answered back almost immediately, but it didn't help the feeling in her chest.  
The rest of the week was a bit of a blur. Peter was friendly, but not overly forward or flirty, she started to learn her way around the computers at Stark Tower, and Russian continued to give her a pounding headache and anxiety. Monica kept Alex busy during the weekend, mostly because she could tell that there was something bothering Alex. That lead to them going to an ice cream social, three study sessions, and a sorority recruitment event. The vivid nightmares continued and Alex barely kept it together.

By the time her Friday Biochemistry class rolled around, her eyelids were permanently droopy. The last bits of summer had reared its head and it had become unbearably hot and it was so humid that even the flies weren't flying through the heavy air. Luckily, the science building was air conditioned so Alex could stay somewhat awake.

Professor Warren had become a little less hostile to her in the past week, even praising a few of her insights. However, he still took every opportunity to unjustly criticize Peter. Today he had asked Peter a complex question about RNA sequencing, which had not been covered yet. Alex tried to help him, but that just got a glare from the Processor before he verbally annihilated Peter.

"Miss Harper, if I could have a word with you," Professor Warren said at the end of class. The entire class turned to look at her.  
Alex ran through all the things that she could have done, but other than being told that she had already failed the class due to not staying awake, she couldn't come up with anything. It wasn't that Alex hadn't been in trouble before, but rarely did she have a problem in the academic setting. When she did, she knew exactly what she'd done.

The professor was writing something in a small journal when Alex made her way into the hall. He didn't look up right away. She danced from one foot to another, waiting for him to finish up and tell her what was going on. It gave her some time to study him up close. Professor Warren wasn't that much taller than she was, only a couple inches, with brown hair that was just starting to go grey. It was a little all over the place, but it seemed to fit with his standard professor outfit of a dress shirt, black suit pants, and loafers. There were some wrinkles around his eyes and on his forehead, but she didn't look all that old. He might even be considered attractive in a silver fox type of way, if he hadn't been such an ass.

"You wanted to see me, Professor?" Alex said, worried that lab was going to start as she stood there, not wanting to get behind in another class.

"Miss Harper, yes. I was hoping that you would have come to office hours last week, especially considering who you have as a lab partner." The professor clicked his pen and slid it into his bag before looking up. "Have you gone online to look at your grade from the first assignment?"

"No, since they hadn't been returned in class, I figured that you were still grading them." Alex was completely confused. "Was there a problem with it or did we have an appointment that I've forgotten, Professor Warren?"

"While you did well in the technical aspect of the assignment, I did have to take off points. Nothing that is too horrible, but it is not a good trend to start for the first assignment of the year." Professor Warren pushed up his glasses as he studied her. "It's a pity, really, since you're obviously bright. That conversation we were having about biochemistry in relation to mental processes and genetic mutations proved that, though beyond the scope of this lecture. When I suggested we carry on that conversation, I assumed you would come by my office."

"Am...am I in trouble?" He really wasn't making any sense. She remembered the conversation he was referring to and in the moment he had sounded more like a rebuke and not an invitation to explore the topic further. The fact that her anxiety had hit critical levels when he mentioned her grade was not helping her follow the conversation.

"Trouble," Professor Warren's green eyes reminding her of a traffic light, bright and wide. "Miss Harper, why in the name of… why would you be in trouble?"

"Well…I…I'm not exactly sure. It's just, you pulled me out of lab and made it seem as if I was in trouble, maybe?" The normal edge was gone from Professor Warren's voice, which was throwing her off even more.

"I pulled you out of class to offer you an opportunity, not a reprimand." Professor Warren's lips tilted up slightly in what could have been considered a hint of a smile. "It's a special project that I'm working on, but it's massive in scope. I can't do it all alone. I think you'd be the perfect assistant, if you can stay awake, that is. I would provide extra credit to help with your grade, your name will appear in the published research, and you'll be compensated for travel."

"Travel? Professor, I'm sorry, but I feel like I came in during the middle of this conversation. What are you talking about?" Alex had this slick, cold feeling in the pit of her stomach. She didn't know why, but something was setting off warning bells somewhere in her brain. It was more than the fact that she was barely keeping her life together without attempting to throw something else into the mix. Right now everything was a wobbly Jenga tower and it wouldn't take much for it all to come tumbling down.

"I don't have time to explain now, you are missing class after all." Professor Warren looked at his watch and huffed. "Come to my office hours and I'll give you more details. Have a good day, Miss Harper."

"What the hell just happened?" Alex asked the empty hallway before turning around and heading back into lab. Peter gave her a questioning look, but she just shrugged and focused on the lesson. It was hard to explain what happens when you had no idea yourself.

"Miss Harper," Jarvis greeted Alex as she got into the elevator and pressed the button to head up to the lab. "Glad to see you made it today. You're running a little late."

"I still have three minutes before I have to clock in, Jarvis. Please, don't try and shame me." Alex wiped sweat from her upper lip. She was drenched with sweat and had to change in the bathroom before interacting with other humans. It was September, wasn't it supposed to cold enough to wear a sweater? What the hell was this?

"You actually have one minute and forty-five seconds, Miss Harper, but I will do my best not to draw your attention to that fact." Jarvis's tone didn't change, but Alex was pretty sure he was being sarcastic. "I was told to inform you that Mr. Rogers wanted to speak with you. He has already been informed that you're in the building."

"I don't have time to see Mr. Rogers, Jarvis. As you pointed out, I'm already late." Alex muttered. Since the nightmare, Alex felt anxious at the thought of seeing Steve, even if he had news about James. If it was bad news, if James was dead, it might be the straw that broke the camel's back. God, she needed everything to stop for a moment.

"Should I tell him that you're busy?" Jarvis asked.

"No, just…let me get changed in the bathroom first? Also, tell Dr. Banner that I'm going to be late and send my apologies." Alex should have known that he wasn't going to stay away for long after she told him about the nightmare. She might as well get this over with...after she changed.

The bathroom tiles were deliciously cool against her bare feet as she stripped in one of the bathroom stalls. Normally, she would never be barefoot in a public restroom, but Stark Tower was meticulously clean. Alex attempted to tame her hair into something lab appropriate to go along with her black pants, lab shoes, and nice white blouse at the sink, but her hair wasn't cooperating. The brush crackled and snapped as she tugged it through her hair.

The door of the other stall opened and a startlingly attractive red head walked over to the other sink. Alex didn't pay her more attention than that, she didn't have the time.

"I wouldn't worry too much about it, Tony usually wears a ratty Black Sabbath t-shirt while he works," the other woman said as she washed her hands. "And Bruce, well, he's brilliant, but he misses things right in front of his face, both figuratively and literally. He isn't going to care what your hair looks like."

"Thanks for the tip, but it's more so the rest of the interns don't think I'm a human disaster," Alex's voice had an edge as she threw the brush into her backpack. Normally, she wouldn't have been so short with a woman she had just met, especially one who was dressed as if she worked behind a desk somewhere in the Tower, but she just wasn't in the mood to play nice today.

"I doubt any of them are better off than you are. First couple weeks for the interns are always the hardest." The redhead ignored the sharpness and dried her hands before offering one to Alex. "Natasha Romanoff, pleasure to meet you."

"Nice to meet you. Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude. I'm just not been getting a lot of sleep recently and I'm running late."

Alex shook the hand out of reflex, her brain attempting to process what she had just been told. There wasn't a lot known about Natasha Romanoff, but there had been a lot of information about her on the web after the fall of SHIELD. The information about her profession and past missions had been taken down quickly, but it stated that she was an assassin of the highest degree. Alex had just snapped at the Black Widow. And she wondered how she kept getting into trouble.

"It's alright," Natasha said with another half-smile as they both headed out the door. "It's probably odd to get unsolicited advice in the women's room anyway."

"I've actually gotten some of the best life advice that way," Alex laughed.

"Alex," Steve pushed off the wall as she exited the bathroom. He looked better rested than the last time she saw him, but that lead to a number of mixed emotions. If he had found James, he would probably look haggard and sleep deprived, but on the other hand, she wanted him to be healthy and look after himself.

"Oh, you're that Alex?" Natasha asked behind her, which made Steve and Alex both blush a little. "That is very interesting."

"I promise you that it isn't all that interesting." Alex shot a look over at Steve before turning her attention back to Natasha. "We just met where I used to work and became friends."

"Friends?" Natasha's red lips tilted up as she looked over at Steve. "So, you check in on all your friends with such consistency? And wonder how she is doing while you're on missions and she's at home on her family farm? Steve, I didn't know you were such a conscientious friend."

"I'm late for work," Alex said quickly, feeling her cheeks get even hotter. "Steve can this wait until I'm done or is it urgent?"

"No, we can talk later. Why don't we grab some food when you're done?" Steve asked, completely unaware of the fact that it sounded as if he was asking her on a date. Natasha's smile only got wider.

"You know I never have food in my fridge," Alex couldn't win whether she accepted or denied Steve's invitation, so she decided to get a free meal out of her embarrassment. "I'll meet you in the lobby when I'm done."

"So, you know what her fridge looks like?" Natasha asked as Alex walked away. "How very…friendly of you."

"Nat, don't start," Steve said before the lab door cut off anything else he had to say.

Alex sighed inwardly. What happened to her? At one point she had been so smooth, getting everyone and everything she wanted with just a couple bats of her eyelashes and a smile. She had never blushing no matter what was said or whispered in her ear. Now, she was flustered all the time and fumbled over her words. Sleep deprivation was a bitch.

"Glad you could join us, Miss Harper," Dr. Banner said without the hint of sarcasm that Professor Warren had when he said it. "Set your stuff down and we'll get started."

"Sorry about being late. I didn't mean to keep you all waiting." Alex felt the other sixteen intern eyes on her and attempted to ignore it. "It won't happen again."

"Don't worry about it too much, things happen." Dr. Banner smiled before turning to address the whole lab again. "I know that some of you are still working on finishing the programming modules, please have that finished by the end of today. There are also task lists at each work table that you should start working through. Most of them are brushing you up on ideas and theories in a number of fields so that we all have the same vocabulary once we start collaborating. Alright, get to work."

Alex was one of the unlucky few who hadn't finished the programming modules, so she sat down at the computer and attempted to at least get through that. While Alex was a millennial, the most computer skills she had was formatting her MySpace page as a teen. Even with the provided instructions, it was all Greek to her. Part of her wanted to ask one of her fellow interns for help, but she was worried that they would see her as young, immature, and incompetent. There was also the added issue that she had set herself apart from the rest of the interns because both Tony Stark and Bruce Banner had addressed her directly, even though she had no control over that.

The next time Alex looked up, it was twilight outside and most of the interns were funneling out of the lab. After attempting the modules for the first hour, she had given up and moved to the other items on her task list. She finished about half, which was a great metaphor for her life.

"You look like you could use a break," Steve's voice came from the door of the lab. "More accurately, it looks like I need to tear you away before you're stuck here all night."

"I do believe I was promised food." Alex smiled over at Steve before logging off the computer and shrugged out of her lab coat. "Though, is it safe to be seen with me? I doubt Natasha is going to let you live it down if we're caught together."

"Nat is harmless, in that regard. Besides, she is so desperate to find me a date that she wouldn't do anything to jeopardize it, including teasing me too much." Steve smiled, apparently finding the whole thing amusing.

"How are you still single? I mean, it's been a couple years since you've reintegrated and most people would be more than to take you, even with your unconventional history and profession." Alex toed out of her lab shoes, leaving them under her lab coat hook, and returning to her one dollar flip-flops.

"Are you confessing to me, Alex?" Steve laughed as they started walking down the hallway.

"I'm not most people," Alex laughed as they waited for the elevator. "Besides, you have no arrest record or tattoos, so you're obviously not my type."

"Well, I can hot wire a car and have killed people, so I think I might still have a chance," Steve pointed out with a wide and bright smile. In that moment he was the all American boy, but his words were also true. Steve Rogers had killed people. It was something that she really connected with Steve since he usually made her feel safe and comfortable.

"Now, to completely ruin my chances, you look exhausted," Steve asked as they stepped into the elevator. "Seeing me die really shake you up that much or something else going on?"

"It's just…I heard his voice and…" Alex trailed off and took a shaky breath. The moment she heard James's voice all the love, hurt, anxiety, and fear from the fall before came flooding back in an instant. Alex knew that she had a flare for the dramatics, but she could honestly say that she had never felt for someone that she felt for James. Of course it would be the one man that she couldn't have. That's karma for you.

"God, sometimes…sometimes I'm not sure that I remember what his voice sounds like." Steve tilted his head up slightly, but then looked over to Alex. "But let's talk about something a little happier."

It took her a few moments to realize that Steve was referring to the fact that Jarvis was listening to their conversation. She still wasn't used to the fact that someone was always listening to her in the Tower. Then again, if you believed the conspiracy theories, Big Brother is always listening and watching no matter where you were.

"Mr. Rogers, I hate to interrupt, but Miss Hill wants to speak to you as soon as possible, in her words." Jarvis broke in as if he picked up that they were avoiding speaking due to his presence.

"Did she say what it was about?" Steve did not sound overly pleased to be summoned, leaning back against the wall and closing his eyes.

"There is a situation in South America that might need your attention. I really can't say more than that with Miss Harper present due to her lower security clearance," Jarvis almost sounded apologetic. Alex found herself starting to like Jarvis, which is weird seeing as he was a computer system. Proof being, she had started to think of Jarvis as a 'he' instead of an 'it'.

"Tell her that I'll be there in a couple minutes," Steve finally said as the elevator doors opened at the lobby.

"I'm starting to think you're manufacturing crisis to avoid spending time with me," Alex laughed as she started walking backward toward the door, which was easy since there was no one else in the lobby. "You're going to give me a complex."

"Rain check?" Steve gave her a sheepish smile as he moved back into the elevator.

"You know how to find me." Alex gave a little finger wave before heading out of Stark Tower.

On the way home, Alex realized just how disappointed it was to eat alone again. After avoiding Steve for about a week, she wished he hadn't been called into work. It wasn't that she wanted to be social, she didn't even know if she had the energy to be social, but she really didn't want to be alone. She called Sam, but it went right to voicemail. There was not even a hint of chill in the September air, but Alex felt cold in her bones. Hopefully, Monica wouldn't mind her moping about her apartment.

"Miss Harper, you look dead on your feet," Henry said as she entered the apartment building.

"It's been a very long day. Is Miss LeBlanc in, do you know?" Alex figured it was easier to ask Henry than go to Monica's floor, knock on the door, and then wait for another elevator to get to her floor. Alex had texted Monica as she was walking home, but hadn't received an answer. This wasn't unusual, Monica was a notoriously unreliable communicator, either getting back to you right away or seven hours later.

"Unfortunately, you just missed her. Is there something you need assistance with?" Henry asked, concern written all over his face.

"No, just wanted to sit around and talk, maybe drain a bottle of wine. Nothing earth shattering. Have a nice night, Henry." Alex gave him a wave before heading to the elevator.

As she let herself into the empty apartment, Alex made a valiant effort not to feel sorry for herself. It was nights like this that she wished she had a boyfriend, someone that was obligated to come and make her feel better. If she put her mind to it, it probably wouldn't even take her a week to snag some poor unfortunate soul, but it wouldn't be fair when her heart would still be with James. She was the definition of a wreck.

Instead, she heated up a couple Hotpockets that were lurking in her freezer and settled in to the nightly routine of doing homework until her eyes couldn't stay open any longer. By the time she crawled into bed, she prayed to get at least a couple hours of good sleep. God had a sense of humor because she got exactly two hours before dreams assaulted her, very vivid ones with James's voice so fresh in her memory. After waking up in tears, Alex dragged herself back to the couch and started researching memory coding once again.

The rest of the weekend wasn't any better and Monday was spent with Peter driving his pencil into various parts of her leg to keep her awake. Alex was grateful, even though she was going to have bruises, since she did not want to go to office hours with Professor Warren if he's berated her for sleeping in his class. It was obvious that she didn't have the time or the brain power for whatever project he wanted her to help him with, but from the glances he kept throwing at her, she didn't think he'd appreciate her just not showing up. Mentally, she promised herself a well-deserved nap if she could just get through this meeting and her internship.

"Professor Warren? You wanted to see me?" Alex called after knocking on the door, peeking around the door into his office.

"Miss Harper, yes, come in. Find a seat somewhere that isn't covered in materials, please," Professor Warren didn't even get to his feet when she came into the room, just waving his hand as he continued to read the papers on the desk in front of him.

It was a kind of organized chaos, not exactly messy, but definitely not neat. There were stacks of papers in neat piles by the bookcase and chairs along with books open to various pages on every other flat surface. Alex pushed the door almost closed before picking up the stack and setting it down next to the chair. Professor Warren didn't pay attention to any of this and finished the last page of the paper before looking up.

"Now, Miss Harper, it is a very easy assignment. You would just have to go and collect samples as well as run through a questionnaire I will provide you with the subject in question. It should only take a couple of hours a week and you'd be paid travelling expenses or given a car service, if needed." Professor Warren spoke quickly, as if he wanted to wrap up the meeting before it even started. "I would just need you to sign a couple forms and you could start as early as next week."

"Excuse me, Professor, but at the risk of sounding idiotic, what the he – what are you talking about?" Alex leaned forward as if physically getting closer to him would make the conversation suddenly make sense.

"What am I…?" Professor Warren blinked once before giving an exasperated sigh and leaned back in his hair, studying her for a moment. "I'm currently working on a case study about genetic mutations in a certain individual to be added to a larger paper I'm writing. The changes that have happened to his body are extraordinary. I have a number of lab experiments and background research that I have to do, I can't meet with him weekly to monitor his mental state and collect the skin samples. That's where you would come in."

"So, if I am understanding correctly, you want me to do a weekly questionnaire with this individual and collect samples, and you'll give me extra credit and compensate any travel expenses?" It sounded like a very cushy gig, so why pick her? Professor Warren had barely shown anything for Alex but disdain, so why help her out by giving her this? There were students who were probably smarter and he got along a lot better with.

"That is basically the assignment, yes." Professor Warren leaned forward and met her eyes. "You're wondering why I chose you."

"I'm not exactly a model student at the moment, which I apologize for, there have to be better options."

"Exactly, you aren't a model student, and the only one that needs extra credit so early in the semester. I also doubt that your lab partner, Mr. Parker, is going to help your grades any. You also seem as if it would take a lot to rattle you, which is also something I need. The environment that the interview will be conducted in is not…hospitable." Professor Warren's green eyes were almost glowing with intensity.

"Where would I be going exactly?" Alex didn't like the sound of having to go somewhere that normal students wouldn't want to go. True, in her youth, she had gone into bars where angels would fear to tread, but she was attempting to get away from all that. She was kind of failing, but she was trying and that had to count for something.

"The Ravencroft Institute." Professor Warren said the name briskly, as if to squash any objections.

It was a wasted effort as Alex had no idea what The Ravencroft Institute was, but the tone was enough to make the hair on her arms stand on edge. The word institute was what confused her as it could be anything from a boarding school to an inpatient mental health hospital. However, Professor Warren was kind of blackmailing her in terms of her grade, so what choice did she have? Russian was already going to put her GPA in jeopardy, she couldn't stress about another course as well.

Yet, Alex didn't have the time or the mental capability to take on another commitment. Not only that, but she really didn't know enough about this project to feel comfortable putting her name on it. Professor Warren spoke as if what Alex would be doing was just a small part of a much larger project. What was the rest of the research focused on? Did he have a whole list of genetically modified people throughout the world? What would that even look like and was it something she wanted to be involved in?

"Let me think about it, Professor?" Alex asked as she got to her feet, putting her bag up on her shoulder. "I already have so much going on. It sounds like a very interesting project, from the little that you've told me, but I just don't know…"

It wasn't a no, but it wasn't a yes either. Alex's anxiety over her grade just wouldn't let her turn him down outright. Also, having a paper about genetic mutation on her resume when it wasn't a field she had a lot of experience in would be tantalizing to possible future employers or PhD programs. The study also did sound interesting, people who survived through genetic mutations could teach a lot about medicine and the human body. It would be a great opportunity if she could find the time and willpower to do it.

"I understand, Miss Harper," Professor Warren was smiling as if she had just enthusiastically agreed to work for him. "I suggest you think the opportunity through thoroughly as well as quickly. It's not something that you would want to, or can really afford, to miss. I also believe you will find the individual who survived the genetic mutation very interesting, as it happened later in his life. It's a once in a lifetime experience. I want an answer by next week."

"Of course, I'll stop by your office hours next Monday." Alex was already moving toward the door. If she stayed, if she listened to him talk some more, she would agree to something that he said. Professor Warren had this magnetism about him that laid right underneath the surface. Maybe that was what it was about him that made her slightly uneasy.

"Close the door on the way out." Professor Warren had already dropped his head back to the papers in front of him.

The rebellious side of Alex wanted to say no at that moment because Professor Warren was acting as if she was going to say yes. There had always been something in her that wanted to defy expectations and do something completely unexpected. However, she was also getting a little aggravated because she was pretty sure she was going to say yes.

He was right, it was an opportunity that Alex couldn't pass up.


	8. Chapter 8

"Explain to me why you like living in New York again?" Jake asked as Alex made her way out of the subway station on her way to the Malone's home.

"Good morning to you as well," Alex laughed as she headed through the streets of Queens. "What exactly is making you question my life choices this time? Also, you live in Miami, you have no room to talk."

"Miami is drug dealers and gangs, not superheroes and aliens and shit, totally different," Jake huffed. "Apparently some animal or something ripped up this scientist's apartment. Luckily they were at the work or something or it would have seriously hurt or killed them. Then there is that Spider-dude or whatever crawling all over the city. None of that touches on the fact that you work for the fucking Hulk."

"Who pissed in your Wheaties this morning, Jake?" Alex couldn't help but laugh. This was a conversation that she had with every member of her family over every form of communication device. It just didn't bother her anymore.

"Lexie, I'm worried about you. More than usual. Promise me you won't take any unnecessary risks, okay? You know how much Mom and Dad worry," Jake said.

"Mom's last email made that very clear in how she completely ignored asking about anything going on with my internship or the city. I'll be careful." Alex knew that she was lying as she said the words.

While she hadn't given her answer to Professor Warren, she knew that she was going to say yes. That meant she would be willingly walking into somewhere with the word institute in the name and those places were rarely pleasant. She doubted that they just let the inhabitants of such a place just walk about, but it was an unnecessary risk. However, it was nothing that Jake needed to know about.

"Jake, I've got to let you go. I'm fulfilling an obligation to a very demanding eight year old this afternoon." Alex said as she turned onto the Malone's street, pushing hair out of her face when the wind kicked up. "Talk to you later?"

"You have my number. We also have to plan when I'm coming up to visit you," Jake said before they made their goodbyes and hung up.

Sandy was sitting on the front steps of her house kicking her shoes against the wooden step. Alex knew the Malone house better than the back of her hand, which floorboards creaked, and just where you had to hit the fridge so the ice came out of the door. The Malone residence felt like home, much like the farmhouse that Alex grew up in, though it was a good deal smaller and updated in the last decade.

"You're exactly seven minutes late," Sandy scolded when she saw Alex, turning her wrist so that Alex could see her Minnie Mouse watch.

"There were a lot of people on the subway this morning Your Highness, I do apologize." Alex tried not to smile at the eight year old girl scolding her for a few minutes of tardiness as she gave her a huge hug. Especially since this was the same child that attempted to convince Alex that going to bed an hour later really didn't matter because time wasn't real. "I see that you've gotten better at telling time."

"You know how she is when she puts her mind to something," Diana Malone appeared at the front door, slinging her purse onto her shoulder. "You're looking a bit thin, dear. Have you been eating? Sleeping?"

"I'm perfectly healthy," Alex fibbed as she mounted the stairs so that she could hug Mrs. Malone. "Heading to the restaurant?"

"Tom was keeping an eye on things this morning, giving me a morning to sleep and see you. However, his arm's broken, it's Saturday, we have a few new girls that are a little wobbly on the floor, I still have to do inventory to place the order on Monday and-"

"And a million other things that a responsible business owner needs to take care of to keep a restaurant running smoothly." Alex cut Mrs. Malone off before she could finish the list and send both of their anxieties through the roof. "I promise that I'll take good care of Sandy and have her back by dinner."

"I never worry about Sandy when she's with you." Mrs. Malone locked up the house and all three of them made their way onto the sidewalk. "Why don't you just drop her off at the restaurant when you're done and I'll feed you both? At least I'll know you'll get one good meal this week."

"You promised me ice cream, remember?" Sandy piped up, putting her small and slightly sticky hand into Alex's. She didn't really want to know what was on the little girl's hand.

"Of course I remember. I'm sure you're going to want popcorn, cotton candy, and any other junk food you happen to see." Alex playfully smacked the bill of Sandy's pink baseball hat before looking back up to Mrs. Malone. "We'll come by the restaurant when we're done."

"I can drive you guys to the zoo? It's no trouble." Mrs. Malone beeped her car open and tossed her purse inside.

"I want to take the subway," Sandy cut in before Alex could say anything.

"You're literally the only New Yorker I know who wants to take the subway," Alex laughed. "Well, the girl of the day has spoken, we're going to take the subway."

"You have my number if anything comes up." Mrs. Malone discreetly slipped a twenty dollar bill into Alex's hand before scooping her daughter up into a hug.  
Before Alex could give the money back, Mrs. Malone was in the car and driving away. Alex and Sandy waved goodbye before they headed to the nearest subway station. By the time that they exited at the Fifth Avenue and Fifty-Ninth street station, Sandy had explained every detail about her school and her friends. Every, single, detail.

A group of boys almost ran over Sandy on their way to Central Park Zoo and Alex had to physically move the little girl out of the way. It took all of Alex's self-control not to swear colorfully, or chase after them to teach them some manners. She wanted to set a good example for Sandy and didn't want to explain to Mrs. Malone how Alex had gotten into a fist fight outside the zoo. It really wouldn't have been a fair fight anyway.

Sandy, in true New York fashion, completely forgot about the incident the moment it was over. Instead, she focused on explaining about how she was now picked first at recess to play kickball. Soon, Alex's head was filled up with all the names of her fellow classmates that Sandy kept mentioning and she forgot the teenagers as well.

"Fancy meeting you here." Alex spun around at the male voice, pulling Sandy behind her in one fluid movement. Of everything she expected to see, coming almost nose to nose with a smiling Peter Parker was not on the list of possibilities. Well, almost nose to nose, Peter was a couple inches taller than she was.

"Parker," Alex said through gritted teeth. "That's a good way to get a knee to the groin or a taser to the chest. Are you stalking me?"

"Hey," Peter help up his hands to show that he meant no harm, looking serious. "I swear on whatever you want me to swear on that I was just walking in the park and saw you, scouts honor."

There was something about Peter that made it hard for Alex not to give him a small smile or take him as a serious threat. He was in a t-shirt from what she guessed was his high school, ripped jeans, and beat up converses. For a twenty something white male, he looked rather nonthreatening. Still, it was one thing for someone to approach her when she was alone, especially a college acquaintance, but she had Sandy with her. Appearances could be deceiving and she would rip Peter limb from limb with her bare hands if he so much looked at Sandy wrong. Also, she was pretty sure that there was a university policy that if her partner died during the semester, she got an A.

"Are you A.J's friend?" Sandy asked, peeking around Alex's leg, being uncharacteristically quiet up to this point. This was the girl who had asked James, a man who looked like he could snap someone's neck, if he was dating Alex and then got offended when he said no. To say Sandy was fearless and unable to keep her mouth shut were both gross understatements.

"I'm trying to be Alex's friend, but she had relegated me to the lab partner zone." Peter laugh as he squatted down so that they were on the same level and offered his hand. "Peter Parker, pleasure to meet you."

"Sandy Malone," the small voice was very serious as she took the hand and gave it a firm shake, "and I don't know what rele…relegating? I don't know what that word means."

"Relegate means that I have decided that we can only have a specific type of relationship," Alex attempted to explain in a way that Sandy would understand while glaring at Peter. "And girls don't like whiny boys, Parker."

"Are you saying you'd find me attractive if I didn't whine?" Peter smiled up at her, ignoring the glare, before turning his attention back to Sandy. "Are you enjoying being out in the park now that it's a bit cooler?"

"We're going to the zoo because Alex was gone all summer and didn't play with me," Sandy explained before she also looked up to Alex. "Can Peter come with us? It would be more fun because he can put me up on his shoulders to see the snow leopards and bears."

"I'm sure Parker has something better to do than cater to your every whim, your highness." Alex gave the little girl a playful push while giving Peter a 'don't you dare' look. "Honestly, the world doesn't revolve around you, Squirt. People have things to do."

"You know Sandy, I've been thinking recently that I wanted to see the snow leopards again. I haven't been to the zoo since I was about your age." Peter got to his feet and gave Alex a wide smile. "That is, if Alex doesn't mind me coming along."

"She doesn't mind," Sandy said before Alex could form a coherent statement that was PG rated. "Do you Alex?"

Alex looked from Sandy to Peter, both all brown eyes and bright smiles and thought a lot of unflattering thoughts about Peter Parker. There was something about Peter just showing up places that was bothering Alex, but she couldn't figure out if it was a very intense crush or something more dangerous. Still, Alex was only human and two pairs of puppy dog eyes were too much for her to deal with.

"Since Peter doesn't seem to have anything else to do, I can't stop him from coming to the zoo with us." Alex regretted the words the moment they were out of her mouth, but there was no taking them back now.

"You have to buy your own ice cream though," Sandy stated before turning on her heels and starting toward the front gate. The little girl being more than a few steps away from Alex made her nervous, so she only spared Peter a glare before following after Sandy.

"For letting me join your group, I'll buy everyone ice cream." Peter slipped his hands into his pockets, winking at Alex before strolling along behind Sandy. There was an overwhelming urge to smack that smile off his face, but Alex restrained herself as she caught up with Sandy, taking her hand.

Sandy chattered away to Peter as they walked about everything she had already told Alex on the way to the zoo. Alex toyed with the idea of calling Sam to have him come meet her, but then she thought that might be overreacting just a bit. Peter wasn't giving off that bad of a vibe and Sam would tease her relentlessly about crashing what he would perceive as a date.

Alex perked up a bit when Sandy started asking Peter questions about himself. In the time it took them to buy their tickets, and it took quite a while since half of New York decided to go to the zoo as well, Alex learned a lot about Peter. He was an only child, raised by his aunt and uncle after his parents passed, until his uncle died trying to stop a robbery a couple years previously. Alex felt guilty that she never even thought to ask Peter about himself and that she had been so harsh on him. She just hadn't thought that anything so serious had happened when he had a happy go lucky attitude.

"Let's start at the far end of the zoo, the kiddy zoo, and then make our way back," Sandy screamed over the din of the crowd.

"So we go right past the ice cream vendor, I see what you're doing," Alex laughed as she took Sandy's hand so she stayed close. Hopefully, no one else had the same idea and the crowd would thin out a bit. Usually Alex thrived in large crowds, it's why she left her little Midwest town, but when she was with Sandy everything suddenly became a danger.

"Aren't you a little old for the kiddy zoo?" Peter walked on the other side of Sandy, almost as if he sensed Alex's anxiety. He didn't put a hand on Sandy or take her hand, but he walked just a little bit behind her so that no one harm could come from her on that side.

"You are never too old for cute animals, Peter," Sandy sniffed, obviously offended.

Alex couldn't help but smile. Sandy was only eight, but she was aware of who she was and what she liked. Not only that, she had no problem telling the rest of the world to go to hell if they stated that she shouldn't like it. If Sandy could carry that through the trails of being a teenager, she was going to be a force to be reckoned with. Hell, she was a force to be reckoned with now. Sandy's indignation also stopped her from noticing that they walked right past the obnoxiously long line for the ice cream vendor.

"Woah, woah, woah, I'm not saying that you're wrong." Peter held up his hands, palms face out. "I'm a huge fan of anything cute and cuddly. Baby ducks and cows, the best. I just know that a lot of people your age don't usually like to admit that they do because of their image. By all means, let's go pet some animals."

"Did you know Alex grew up on a farm? She owns horses and cows and sheep! She promised that when I am a bit older and she's done with college, she is going to take me to see them all. She's going to let me ride one of the horses, too!" Sandy was basically bouncing on her toes at the thought while they waited to cross 65th street.

"You're a country girl?" Peter raised an eyebrow at that, eyes going to Alex's earrings and tattoos. "Would not have guessed that."

"I'm full of surprises." Alex gave him a small smile before they crossed the street.

Peter gave her a crooked smile, but turned his attention back down to Sandy, who had started chattering away about how she used to go horseback riding. Peter seemed to enjoy himself as much as Sandy, walking through the children's zoo and reading the plaques. Alex found herself starting to relax a bit. Peter was weird, but he seemed to be pretty harmless.

In the main zoo was still crowded, but Peter had gotten Sandy up to the front of the glass to watch the penguins swim. There was one penguin that was moving pebbles from one mound to the other, which Sandy found extremely entertaining. Alex scanned the crowd out of habit when her eyes weren't on the purple t-shirt and brown ponytail sticking out of the baseball hat.

Suddenly, there was this pit of cold in her stomach and Alex's fingers started to rub her wrist. She gave Sandy one more look, seeing Peter next to her, and then turned to see if anyone was giving her this horrible feeling. For a moment she caught sight of a black haired male that seemed familiar, tickling the edge of her memory, but then it disappeared. None of the other patrons stood out to her. However, Alex wanted to anywhere else, but she didn't want to ruin Sandy's fun without good reason.

"Everything alright?" Alex jumped when Peter spoke softly in her ear. She spun around, seeing that he was standing right behind her, holding Sandy's hand.

"Yeah, yeah…I just…" Alex was sure that something was wrong, but she had no proof beside a horrible sense of danger in her stomach. Maybe her paranoia was just getting worse, which was super inconvenient when you lived somewhere as populous as New York City.

"You just?" Peter prompted, his eyes scanning the crowd along with Alex. He moved forward so that they were shoulder to shoulder, which made Alex feel a little better since she wasn't alone. It shocked her a bit, it had been a while since she had felt as if someone had her back instead of someone that she would need to protect.

"I just think that it's time to go get some ice cream." Alex gave Peter a smile.

The mention of ice cream got Sandy's attention and she was more than happy to leave the penguins in search of the nearest ice cream cart. The line wasn't much shorter, but Peter offered to wait in line while the girls sat down on a bench in the shade.

"So you and Peter are partners in college? What does that mean?" Sandy asked as they watched the people walking by them.

"In some of the science classes that you take in college, you have a lab that helps you understand what the teacher told you in class. It's like in Bill Nye the Science Guy where he teaches you how certain science things work, but we have to figure it out ourselves," Alex attempted to explain in a way that Sandy would understand and failing.

"Bill who?" Sandy asked, head tilted to the side. Alex clenched her chest and it was only slightly for dramatic effect. Honestly, she had never felt older. Is this what Steve felt like when someone didn't get one of his references? What the hell were they teaching in school that Sandy didn't know who Bill Nye was? Someone should get a strongly worded letter about this gap in education.

"We are going to watch videos of him on YouTube later, if it isn't on Netflix, but do you understand what I mean? That me and Peter work together to understand what we are learning during class by doing it ourselves," Alex explained.

"Yeah, that makes sense, like when Mrs. Farris made the volcano to show us chemical reactions." Sandy nodded, but there still seemed to be something that was bothering her. "Does that mean that James isn't your boyfriend anymore?"

Before Alex figured out how to answer that very complicated question, Sandy jumped up to grab her ice cream cone from Peter. He had been attempting to carry all three and one had been in danger of sliding off it's cone. Alex followed at a slower pace, mostly because she didn't want to continue that conversation, and let Sandy talk with Peter while they continued through the zoo.

"So," Sandy said from atop Peter's shoulders so she could watch the grizzly bears play in the water over the people pressed against the fence, "do you like Alex? Is that why you picked her as your partner and wanted to come to the zoo with us?"

Alex envisioned herself jumping into the bear pen, being mauled quickly sounded very appealing. However, she wouldn't want to the poor bear to be harmed because an eight year old asked if she was dating her lab partner. That was a bit dramatic. At least Peter was blushing a bit too, focusing on his shoelaces as if they were the most interesting things in the world.

"I mean, you aren't as good looking as James, who was her last boyfriend." Sandy continued, ignoring both Alex and Peter's discomfort. "But you're also very different. He was very quiet and you talk a lot. You're funnier too. James also didn't buy my ice cream, but he did get Alex breakfast that one time. James also had a really nice smile."

"James sounds dreamy," Peter said as he looked over at Alex with a crooked smile before he helped Sandy down off his shoulders. "From what you're telling me, I don't think I can complete with this James character. Honestly, I'm just trying to be Alex's friend. She's way out of my league."

Sandy nodded and then took Peter's hand and started to walk over to the snow leopards. Peter gave Alex a wink as he followed after Sandy. Alex decided to finish her ice cream before she stuck her foot in her mouth. While it was a little flattering that Sandy thought any man remotely close in age to Alex was interested in dating her, it did make things embarrassing. Especially since it was hard to get a read on if Peter was interested in her romantically, as a friend, or if he was a stalker.

"Out of your league?" Alex asked quietly while Sandy pressed against the glass to watch the large cat prowl around the enclosure.

"I was worried if I said anything else she would kick me in the shins. I didn't realize they made bodyguards so small," Peter laughed as they watched Sandy. "It also seemed the best answer to save both of us a good bit of embarrassment. I was being completely serious when I said the ex-boyfriend sounded dreamy, however."

"Is there a question there?" Alex really hoped there wasn't.

"I mean, he sounds practically perfect in every way. What happened? Was he married? Not that I'm judging you or anything, I'm just curious." Peter dropped his voice as if anyone at the zoo would care about her dating habits.

"You know what they said about curiosity and the cat, don't you?" Alex gave him a look, but then sighed and shook her head. "He wasn't married, but it was…complicated. He was older and it just ended up not working out. Also, I'll try not to be offended that you think I'd have an affair with a married man."

"I wasn't trying to offend you, it's just obvious that you're still into him and everything, so I was trying to think of why you wouldn't still be together." Peter and Alex moved with Sandy as she moved to the red panda exhibit. "It's just that people have a way of making things more complicated that they are. It might not be too late to talk things out with Mr. Dreamy."

"Are you my relationship counselor now?" Alex snapped before grabbing Sandy before she walked in front of a stroller. "Frankly, it's none of your business so drop it."

"Hey, I'm just trying to help here." Peter put his hands in his pockets as he turned his attention back to the red pandas. "As someone who royally screwed up the one good relationship he had, you shouldn't let something important slip away from you."

"Mom says that A.J. represses her emotions because she is scared of being vulnerable," Sandy piped in as she took Alex's hand. "Can I have cotton candy? You did promise cotton candy."

"From the mouth of babes," Peter muttered, but whistled innocently when Alex glared at him.

"I promised you ice cream, but I mentioned that I knew you were going to bother me for cotton candy because you have no shame. There is a difference." Alex smacked the bill of her baseball cap. "But I guess it's alright to rot your teeth out, they are still the baby ones after all. It will also keep you from any other opinions about my personal life."

"Wonderful parenting skills," Peter commented, giving Alex a thumbs up when she glared again. "I mean it on par with telling her to play in traffic, but you're getting there."

"Hey, I'm not her mother. I'm just supposed to make sure that she doesn't die and gets to bed on time when I watch her," Alex laughed as she let Sandy start to pull her in the direction of the cotton candy. "If that means that I have to hop her on sugar and carbs to keep her in almost one piece, so be it. I'm not above that."

"Good to know that you aren't scared to bend the rules when the occasion calls for it," Peter laughed. "You know, I always did peg you as a true neutral type of girl, but chaotic good might fit too."

"English, please, Parker. I understood every other word of that." Alex resisted the urge to rub her temples. Peter was jumping from topic to topic and most of them were ones that she had no desire to talk about. Sandy was not helping matters in the slightest. How did she get herself into this situation again?

"He's talking about Dungeons and Dragons, your characters have alignments, which lets people know about how they make decisions," Sandy explained with a weariness that startled a laugh out of both Peter and Alex. "Also, you're so wrong. She's chaotic neutral."

"I bow to your superior knowledge of Harper's personality, you have known her longer than I have." Peter literally bowed to the little girl. "How do you know about D&D?"

"My dad plays and he taught me all about it, he even is helping me make my own character, even though there is no one for me to play with." Sandy shrugged as she looked up at Peter. "I should have known you played. You look like you do."

"I'll try not to be offended. D&D is starting to become popular again," Peter laughed, rubbing the back of his neck as Alex spotted a stall that sold cotton candy.

"Well, maybe you should look less like a nerd," Sandy said simply.

Alex hid her huge smile behind her hand and a fake cough. From the mouth of babes indeed. However, while she loved Sandy to death, especially the lack of filter the young girl had, this was a teaching moment. As much as she joked with Peter, she did want Sandy to be a better person than Alex.

"Sandy," Alex knelt down, "what have I told you about commenting on people's appearance?"

"If they can't change that within five minutes, then I should keep it to myself," Sandy sighed as she took her baseball cap off and itched her scalp. "But if he took the glasses off, dressed in less layers, and clothes that actually fit him, he wouldn't look like such a geek. He can do that in five minutes."

"And with that, we're going to get you sugar to stop you from talking," Alex got up and grabbed a bag of pink and blue sugar fluff as well as a bottle of water. The price was obnoxious, but anything to get Sandy to stop speaking for just a couple minutes. Alex mixed some of the pink and blue together and handed the bag down to the eight year old as if she was offering tribute to a god.

"So…you ready for the quiz on Monday?" Peter asked after a few moments of awkward silence.

"I still need to study," Alex sighed, so thankful to move onto a topic that wasn't her relationship with a super soldier. "I'm worried I bombed the one that we took in lab."

"Well if you bombed it, we're both screwed 'cause I copied all your answers," Peter smiled as he plucked from pink cotton candy from the bag in Alex's hand. "So I hear that you work at Stark Industries."

"What about it?" Alex licked some cotton candy residue off her fingers, eyes narrowing. "And who told you that I was working at Stark Tower?"

"I mean, when someone still in undergraduate and working with Tony Stark and Dr. Banner, people start to talk around campus," Peter shrugged, nudging Sandy with his hand to get her out of the way of a large group of teenagers who were having too much fun to pay attention to where they were going. "Are you going to start coming to class in spandex and a mask that only covers your cheek bones?"

"Only in your dreams Parker," Alex took another bit of cotton candy.

Just when she was starting to get comfortable with having Peter around, he started giving off weird vibes again. Alex was pretty sure she hadn't told anyone other than Monica and her advisor to get the credits for working at Stark Industries about the position. Monica may talk a lot, but she was very good at keeping secrets, especially Alex's. So that begged the question, how did Peter know that Alex worked for Stark Industries?

"God, being at the Tower must be amazing," Peter continued with a bounce in his step. "I mean, all that cutting edge technology? I would kill just to have like fifteen minutes with the things he has in that lab. Hell, the computer programs along would probably blow my mind."

"Actually they make me want to tear my hair out, but to each their own, I guess." Alex muttered, wondering again about getting that background check on Peter. "I don't do much there, really. Clean Petri dishes and test tubes, fetch coffee, stuff like that, but I'm getting paid so I can't complain."

"You're telling me they're having the girl who co-authored a paper with the head of the microbiology department about the use of bacteria to fight cancer, fetch coffee? That's really a waste of your talents." Peter plucked some more cotton candy out of the bag as he gave Alex a look.

"What were you doing reading a paper about the use of bacteria to fight cancer?" Alex didn't want to sound so defensive, but she didn't remember really working on that paper. It sounded very interesting, she wondered what she did on it. It would probably a topic that would help her while working in the medical division of Stark Industries.

"I make it a point to know whether I'm going to have to do all the work in group projects," Peter laughed.

"Peter, look!" Sandy grabbed his hand and led him into the tropic zoo building.

Alex followed after them, still trying to figure if Peter was a love sick puppy or tipping over into the dangerous stalker territory. While she didn't have that icy cold feeling in the pit of her stomach that she had become accustomed to with people who set off her warning bells, there was something not right about that boy. That fact that she didn't know what was really starting to bother her.

Peter kept up a running dialogue with Sandy about facts that he knew about bats. Apparently, he was very interested in echo location, and was trying to explain it to Sandy in a way that she would understand. The eight-year-old was enthralled and Alex even learned a thing or two.  
"How did you learn so much about bats?" Alex asked when Sandy walked over to watch a demonstration about tropical snakes. While Alex was not scared of snakes, any girl that grew up in the creeks and fields of the Midwest couldn't start crying at the sight of a snake. That being said, she did not want to get up close and intimate with them if she could help it. That was doubly true for spiders, so Alex said near the edges of the group to keep an eye on Sandy and away from the creatures on display.

"I read a lot of Batman comics," Peter whispered with a shrug.

"You're joking," Alex turned to look at him. Comic books have never been Alex's thing, but she was pretty sure that Bruce Wayne didn't use echolocation as one of his skills. Even if he did, she doubted the comics would explain more than the episode of The Magic School Bus that Alex learned the basics from in elementary school. Then again, Playboy had good articles sometimes.

"Yeah, I am." Peter gave her a wink. "I was working on something at Oscorp for a while and it was about animal genetics. I got into looking into research for a bunch of animals, spiders, mostly, but also some bats and rats."

"You worked for Oscorp?" Alex looked at Peter, a bit surprised. He was a couple years younger than her at least, so how did he get a job at one of the top biomedical companies in the world so young? Maybe they had a high school internship program? He did say he was New York, born and raised.

"What? No, no, I umm…I knew someone who worked there," Peter's face fell and he kicked a pebble away from him.

Alex waited for Peter to ramble on about whoever he was referring to, telling her their entire life story in the most convoluted way possible, but he stayed quiet. When she looked over at him, his head was still down and there was this expression that made her heart sink. Whoever it was, they had been romantically involved and it hadn't ended well, it was written all over his face. It was the same expression she saw in the mirror sometimes when she wasn't careful and thought about James as she got ready for bed.

"Alex, I can put a boa constrictor around my neck!" Sandy screamed from the front of the group, bouncing on her toes. "Come and take a picture to take to send to my mom!"

So this was karma for Alex taking so much joy from Sandy calling Peter a nerd earlier. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, telling herself that it was going to be fine. In fact, it could be worse, Sandy could have wanted to hold a tarantula. While Alex had strong protective instincts, it would have been too much for her to watch a spider crawl all over Sandy. She would have to bow out of that and had Peter keep an eye on the situation.

"Come on, it will be fun," Peter gave Alex a nudge toward the front of the crowd. "Unless you're scared?"

Alex glared as they made their way through the mass of people who had been watching. While she would like to say she was mature and above petty taunts, it was almost as if he was Double Dog Daring her, and she'd now rather die than show any fear. Still, the snake was so heavy that the handler had to support the creature on one end and, after a look from Peter, Alex went and held the other end. Her smile was pretty strained as Peter took the pictures, and she let go of it as soon as humanly possible, but Sandy seemed taken with the large reptile.

"Do you think mom will let me get a pet snake?" Sandy asked as they used hand sanitizer on their way out of the tropical building.

"I'm going to go with no on that one, Squirt," Alex laughed as she slung her arm over the little girl's shoulders. Mrs. Malone was not a fan of animals in general, unless they were dead and being served in her restaurant. While she would pet a dog in passing, Mrs. Malone had no desire to own one. A snake was probably so out of the realm of possibility that you couldn't even see it in this galaxy.

"Besides, do you really want to be the one that had to feed it all those cute little mice for dinner? You said you liked cute things earlier." Peter added when Sandy didn't really seem to listen to Alex's gentle no.

Sandy wrinkled up her nose and gave a little head shake at the thought, which made Alex sigh in relief. Mrs. Malone would not take it well if Sandy came home demanding a snake after their trip today. The picture alone was going to set the restaurant owners maternal instincts into overdrive.

"What do you say kid? You ready to get out of here?" Alex asked, figuring that Mrs. Malone was probably going to want to see her child wasn't eaten by the large yellow snake. It was also already three in the afternoon. Where had the day gone?

"Yeah, my feet are starting to hurt and I'm hungry," Sandy admitted as she slipped her hand back into Alex's. "Peter, do you want to come and have dinner with us?"

"That's a tempting offer, but I'm going to have to take a rain check," Peter said before Alex could give him a 'don't you dare look'. "I live with my aunt and she cooks enough to feed an army, even though it's the two of us. If I don't want to be eating meatloaf for the rest of the week, I should probably head home. Thank you for letting me walk with you guys around the zoo."

"Thank you for picking me up so I could see the animals and buying me ice cream," Sandy said as she reached a hand out to Peter, very serious.

"It was my absolute pleasure. Maybe, if Alex let's us, we'll do it again sometime," Peter was just as serious as he took Sandy's hand and shook it. "It's not like she's going to be able to get away from me anyway."

"We'll see," Alex said before Sandy could beg her to make some sort of social commitment. While nothing had happened at the zoo, Alex still had a hard time believing that Peter just happened to be in the right place at the right time to invite himself along for today's activities. Much like when he just happened to be jogging at the same time she was, it just didn't feel completely right. There was something off about Peter.

"I'm telling you, my aunt is going to invite you over for dinner at some point this semester. She loves to see that I do, in fact, have friends." Peter said as he started walking backwards, hands in his pockets.

"A personable guy like you? It's hard to believe that you don't have loads of friends," Alex laughed as they started in the opposite direction toward the subway.

"Apparently, some people find me annoying," Peter gave her a wide smile. "Imagine that."

"You don't say?" Alex laughed and shook her head.

"See you Monday!" Peter called with a wave before disappearing into the faceless mass that is New York City. He was strange, and possibly stalking her out of some misplaced chivalry, but he was also entertaining. Kind of like a large puppy that wasn't quiet housebroken yet and still thought it was a lap dog.

"Alright, let's go and get you some grub." Alex gave Sandy a hip check, though it was more of a hip to shoulder nudge.

"Peter is strange," Sandy said as they headed down into the subway station. "But I like him."

"Yeah, yeah he is strange." Alex agreed, but she felt herself smiling a little. "But I kind of like him too. Just don't tell anyone, especially him, that I said that."


	9. Chapter 9

"You look like someone shot your dog," Monica wrapped her arms around Alex's waist and rested her head on the taller girl's shoulder while they waited in line to pay for their frozen yogurt. "What's wrong? Boy trouble again because if you need me to kick someone's ass…"

"Only if you consider my prepodavatel telling me that if I don't get better, I am going to fail boy trouble," Alex sighed as she put her head against Monica's curls. "Please explain to me why I decided to take Russian as an elective again?"

"Girl, I have been asking you that since you told me that it was on your schedule," Monica laughed as she gave Alex a squeeze and let go as it was almost their turn to pay. "I mean, it's Tuesday, but I can offer going out for drinks Friday night to help you forget your troubles."

"I can't," Alex sighed as she pulled her card out, attempting to stop everything else from spilling out. "I have my first extra credit thing Saturday morning. I don't think it would be a good idea to show up hungover the first day."

"That on top of you not sleeping would not give the best impression, I'll give you that," Monica laughed as the two girls grabbed a table by the window and dug into their yogurt. "Where is this assignment again, the Ravenclaw Institute or something?"

"The Ravencroft Institute." Alex purposefully didn't tell Monica that it was an asylum for the criminally insane. There was really no reason to get a lecture when Alex just wanted to enjoy her frozen yogurt.

Unfortunately, she forgot that Google existed and it could be accessed easily by a smartphone.

"Your internship is at an asylum for the criminally insane." Monica blinked at Alex, her spoon dripping peanut butter yogurt on the table while cheesecake and strawberry bits threatened to slide off.

Slowly, Monica put the bright pink plastic spoon into the container and folded her long, slender fingers on the table, and stared at her. Alex pushed around her chocolate yogurt filled with gummy worms, chocolate chips, and whipped cream and avoided the intense gaze. However, after almost three minutes of Monica's silence, Alex finally looked up. Her dark eyes were practically sparking and her bright red lips were a thin line.

"Please explain to me what made you think that taking an extra credit assignment at an insane asylum was a good idea? Especially given how you attract every lunatic is a ten mile radius?" Monica's voice was steady and controlled, but her nails were pressing into her skin hard. "I didn't even think there were any asylums in New York City anymore? That's like, some medieval shit, Alex."

"It's a government run facility for criminals who are too dangerous and unstable for the normal prison population," Alex recited what she had read off the internet, expecting someone was going to yell her about this whole situation.

"Yes, because 'government run facility' is not just as terrible sounding as 'asylum'" Monica's voice rose and Alex quickly tried to shush her. "What the hell could you possibly be doing there? You aren't a psychologist, you're a scientist."

"Let's not shame our psychologist colleagues, they are also scientists." Alex pointed out, which lead Monica waved her spoon before vigorously attacking her frozen yogurt once again. "There is a patient at the Institute that survived some sort of genetic mutation. Professor Warren wants to study how that affected the mental processes as well as the physiological effects. I would just be collecting skin and blood samples, then completing a quick interview."

While Alex was attempting to sound confident it was all a show. There wasn't much information about Ravencroft on the internet and it almost made her tell Professor Warren no. However, she had checked her grades that morning and had failed her first Russian quiz, so she needed the extra credit to cushion her GPA. A professor wouldn't send her into a seriously dangerous situation, so there was no reason to stress about it. Right?

There was also this morbid sense of curiosity about what this genetic mutation looked like. While it was probably not anything dramatic, she was envisioning extra limbs or scales. The scientific part of her brain was interested about the research that this data was going to be used for as well. The questionnaire she had been emailed seemed pretty standard, but there was also a note to follow any line of questioning that Alex thought relevant. How was she supposed to know that if she didn't know what the whole study was about?

"Why do you keep doing this to me?" Monica said with a sigh, shaking her head so her curls bounced wildly. "Now, instead of lazily laying in my bed with some hunk Saturday morning and getting my well-deserved beauty sleep, I'm going to be worrying about your dumb ass."

"If you get any more beautiful, people are going to start building monuments to you," Alex laughed as she decapitated a gummy worm.

"It's just, you have this freakish ability to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Knowing you, there is going to be a security failure and you're going to be taken hostage within the first half hour." Monica gave Alex a small smile to show that she was mostly joking.

Alex rolled her eyes, but couldn't say that it was completely out of the realm of possibility. Just imagining the lecture she would get from Sam and Steve if they had to bust into a criminal asylum to save her was enough to give her a headache. That actually might be what would cause Steve to lock her in Stark Tower like a fairytale princess. Her mother and Jake would probably send him a thank you basket when they found out.

"Well, since you're going to be in a hostage situation on Saturday, you have to come over and have wine and Chinese tonight. I'll invite Gabe over and we'll have a nice night in." Monica had stress eaten all of her yogurt in record speed and tossed the empty carton into the trash can.

"You're not going to take no for an answer, are you?" Alex laughed as her phone started to vibrate in her pocket, surprised to see Michael Sousa's name on the screen. "I have to take this, give me a second?"

Monica waved her hand as Alex grabbed her yogurt and headed out to get a little bit of privacy. Normally, she would have let the call go to voicemail, but she was hoping that her favorite New York City cop had done the background check she requested on Peter Parker. She really hoped that he wasn't some crazed stalker or something because that would make lab really awkward.

"Whatever it is, I didn't do it, I swear," Alex joked as she picked up the call.

"You know, it kind of concerns me that is your standard greeting when you answer my calls," Michael's voice held a smile, which eased Alex's anxiety a little. He would be using his cop voice if there was serious trouble.

"Well, now that we've gotten my innocence out of the way, what can I do for you, Detective?" Alex leaned against the warm bricks of the building, phone pressed against her shoulder as she started in on her yogurt again. "Just know that I can and will plead the fifth if need be."

"Alright, well please try and keep that sense of humor during this conversation," Michael laughed, but Alex's anxiety made her shove more yogurt into her face. "I might have asked a couple of the younger officers keep an eye on the guys you beat up outside the Marquee the other night."

"Well…I guess that is better than having them following me around," Alex sighed as she continued to shovel yogurt into her mouth. "I'm guessing they are up to something that has to do with me or you wouldn't be even calling me. What's going on?"

"That's where it gets a little fuzzy," Michael paused after that.

"So you're calling me because?"

"The group of them were hanging around your college a couple days the past week. I'm not saying that they were looking for you, but they really had no reason being there if they weren't looking for you," Michael said it slowly, as if he really didn't want to admit this to Alex.

"So, you're calling me to be careful and report if I see a bunch of rapists hanging about," Alex scraped the bottom of her yogurt container, needed more sugar to deal with this. What was it with every man in her life thinking that she needed to be monitored twenty-four seven?

"Something like that. I know you can take care of yourself, just be a bit more careful than normal," there was a hint of a smile in Michael's voice again. "I would hate to have to write you up for manslaughter charges."

"So you're just trying to save yourself some paperwork, I see how it is." Alex laughed as she tossed the yogurt cup away as she walked back into join Monica. "Thanks for the heads up, Michael. If anything changes, let me know."

"I would say the same thing to you, but it would be a waste of my breath," Michael actually laughed now. "Take care of yourself, Alex. I'll talk to you later."

"Michael as in that hunky police officer from the other night?" Monica asked with a large smile on her face as Alex hung up the phone and threw it in her bag. It was obvious from that wide smile that Monica had a thousand things to say, but instead just tilted her head and fluttered her eyelashes.

"If I'm coming to your place for Chinese and wine, I need to get back to my place and get some work done." Alex knew there was no reason to attempt to defend herself against Monica's unstated accusations. No matter what she said, Monica would turn it around that Alex was madly in love with the Detective. Better to just keep her mouth shut.

"You're no fun," Monica pouted as they gathered up their stuff and headed out of the shop. "If it's because of the Russian thing, I suggest swallowing your pride and getting a tutor. If you go to the student union, there might be something on the bulletin board. I need my fun-loving and carefree Alexandra back."

"You know, that's not a bad idea," Alex laughed as they walked home, enjoying the warm weather in early autumn afternoon.

"Darling, all my ideas are good." Monica flipped her curls before busting out laughing again. "Seriously, though. You need some stress relief and if you get it from sleeping with a cop, I guess I can forgive you."

Alex rolled her eyes, but just let it go. Henry waved at the girls when they got back to their apartment building, saying that it was good to see them enjoying the day. Alex went to her apartment and was the most productive she had been all semester. While she might have dozed off on her anatomy notes, she still got caught up on all her classes except Russian.

At seven, Alex finally closed her books. She didn't worry about changing out of the gym shorts and tank tops she had been wearing, knowing that Monica had seen worse and Gabe wouldn't care. Instead, she slid on some flip-flops and plodded to Monica's apartment.

"Su casa es tu casa." Gabriel gave Alex a dazzling smile as he opened Monica's door and handed her a wine glass.

"Muchas gracias." Alex knew that her pronunciation was terrible, but it was the one phrase in Spanish that she knew.

Gabe gave a good natured laugh as he closed the door and ushered Alex into the living room. Monica was flopped belly down on a bean bag, ankles cross in the air, as she had notes and textbooks spread all around her.

"Oh, no, if I can't study, then you can't study," Alex kicked Monica's leg lightly before she sank down onto the couch, enjoying the air conditioning. "Besides, what kind of host makes their guest open the door?"

"I had to finish this chapter, alright? Besides, Gabe has been texting a boy for the past half hour with this idiotic smile on his face while we were waiting for you. He's fine." Monica flipped her text book closed before rolling onto her back. "And, because we have the first sorority mixer on Saturday, which you're totally invited to, I need to get ahead on assignments."

"I'm probably going to want to just come home and sleep, but I'll let you know," Alex knew that the chances of her actually sleeping more than two hours were very low, but that didn't mean she didn't want to try. Plus, socializing past drinking and getting Chinese sounded too draining.

"If you wanted to go and have hot sex with the police officer, you just have to say so," Monica laughed as she got to her feet and grabbed her phone.

Monica turned on Netflix and then tossed her phone over to Gabe so that he could put in his GrubHub order. He passed the phone back to Monica, who tossed it at Alex, almost making her spill wine all over the couch. After Alex handed it back, Monica continued to focus on the phone, tapping away and sighing.

"You're looking a little tense, Mo," Gabe said as he turned down the episode of Supernatural for a moment. "Something wrong with our favorite Vice President of a sorority?"

"For once, it's not the sisters that are causing me to go prematurely grey," Monica sat up and blew some of her curls out of her face. "There has been some…tension at Oscorp recently due to events that I can't tell you about under penalty of death. Of course, the interns are being blamed for the whole thing, which is ridiculous."

"Why didn't you mention something when we were together earlier?" Alex looked away from the screen were Sam and Dean Winchester were doing something very stupid and looking amazing doing it.

"When did I have the time between you dropping the mental asylum bomb and then talking to Hot Detective on the phone?" Monica smile at Alex.

"What's the problem, in vague terms in which we wouldn't really know what's going on if someone tortured us for the information?" Gabriel asked as he got up and refilled everyone's wine glass.

"As it won't be leaving this room," Monica gave them both a pointed look, "Oscorp has been experiencing some technical difficulties with their security system recently. Nothing serious and no one outside of the company knows about it, but obviously they are starting to get a bit paranoid about the whole thing. As the interns are low men on the totem pole and some of the glitches are around our lab, all the interns in my division have been questioned. There is a group message that's comparing interrogation notes."

"That sucks, didn't you all need to go through some sort of…testing to get security clearance?" Alex asked as she sipped her wine. She had been wondering how different Oscorp was from Stark Industries, but she didn't want to come out and say she had to have a polygraph test. It would seem weird if it wasn't industry practice.

"I mean there were background check run and personal references verified, the usual stuff. We also don't have access to everything, just the projects we're working on. I mean, I'm working on a new water filtration system that takes out impurities while equally distributing things like fluoride into the water at less cost, smaller equipment, and hopefully completely green." Monica shrugged. "I don't know why they're so worked up about it. Nothing has been stolen and the security cameras have never gone out. It's just some IT bug that has to be taken care of."

"It might not be that simple," Gabriel said as he tapped the side of his wineglass, obviously deep in thought. "There are a number of reasons for glitches in the system that are not simply IT issues."

Gabriel started to explain a number of complicated computer and security processes that could possibly lead to the vague glitches Monica had mentioned. Some of it was rather innocent stuff, others were malicious virus that had no set plan of attack, just to cause chaos. Alex zoned out after a couple minutes, feeling about an inch tall for not noticing that something was bothering Monica. She had to be the worst friend in the history of the world, just a step above Brutus to Caesar, but just barely.

"Oh fucking hell," Monica gave a frustrated growl and collapsed face first into the bean bag. "What did I do to deserve this?"

"What's going on?" Alex asked, not sure what could have made Monica react so dramatically.

"I hit pick-up instead of delivery and so now the delicious, unhealthy, and soul comforting Chinese food that I need is now sitting on a counter instead of on it's way into my belly," Monica's voice was muffled by the chair.

"Don't be so dramatic, I'll go pick it up," Alex said with a laugh as she got up and slipped her flip-flops on. "You ordered from The Jade Dragon, right? That's only like ten blocks away and it's still nice out."

"Do you want me to go with you?" Gabriel asked, already getting to his feet. However, at that moment a cell phone started to ring. They all stared at one another for a moment before it was coming from Gabe's pocket. He pulled out another cell phone and sighed.

"You take whatever that is, it's not that late and the restaurant isn't far. I'll be back before you finish your call." Alex left before anyone could protest, taking the stairs since it was faster.

It had gotten a bit cooler than Alex had expected and she crossed her arms over her chest as she walked quickly toward The Jade Dragon. While the restaurant didn't get any marks on aesthetics or presentation, it was the most delicious Chinese in the city. For a moment while she was waiting for the light to change, Alex got a chill that she was being watched, but the light changed and the feeling slipped away as the bell over the front door rang.

After five minutes to confirm with Monica that Alex was there to get the food, she was left with a brown paper bag packed full with delicious smelling food. The walk back took a little longer, Alex having to switch hands when her fingers cramped. That feeling of something not being right only increased as she seemed to hit every light. Alex's fingers found her wrist, looking around, but nothing was out of the ordinary. Anxiety was a bitch.

Five blocks from the building, something hard and cold was pressed into Alex's spine. After having a gun pressed to your skin once, you never forget it, and Alex froze recognizing that feeling now. This time it was not one of her less than civilized friends playing a not at all funny joke and Alex's wrist throbbed in pain.

"You looked better in the red dress," A male voice whispered into her ear. "You're going to walk down this alley with us, calmly, and we're going to have a little chat."

"If I say no?" Alex's voice was steady even though she was covered in a cold sweat. This close, there was the possibility of getting the gun away from the guy without him paralyzing her with one shot, if not kill her. However, there was a chance she couldn't and also that he would accidently fire and hit some innocent bystander. Was that a risk she was willing to take?

"We don't believe in the word no, Princess." The sound of a click made Alex jump a little. "But you know that, don't you?"

Alex knew at that moment it was the assholes from Marquee.

Her eyes closed and she said a couple of choice words under her breath before moving into the alley. While she was still scared, a part of her was wondering how this kept happening to her. Maybe she should let Steve lock in Stark Tower, maybe then she wouldn't be accosted by morons.

"You know," Alex said over her shoulder, anger starting to replace some of her fear, "if I was really a princess, this would be considered treason. I could have you beheaded."

"You smart mouth bitch," The gun is brought down on the back of Alex's skull, causing her to stumble into the dumpster and see stars. "I lost my acceptance to medical school because of the police report."

Alex set the Chinese food on the top of the dumpster so she wouldn't spill everything and slowly turned around. The three men who assaulted the brunette outside the Marquee where all glaring at her, but there was only one gun, which was a plus. Still, Alex was in flip-flops and she didn't think that one bag of takeout would stop a bullet.

"Do you understand what you did to us, what we might lose?" The shortest one growled.

"Maybe you shouldn't have raped a bunch of women and then your perfect future would be secure. However, you ruined their futures so it only seems fair that your lives are ruined as well." The fear had seeped away at some point, leaving just anger. How dare these men who raped a number of women, stand there and complain to her about how their actions ruined their lives.

"None of them said no," the black haired one pointed out with the sleaziest smile Alex had ever seen, "and neither will you."

"No," Alex said simply as she took a step forward. "Now, if you touch me, you're going to need god himself to stop me from ripping your throat out with my teeth."

All three of the men took a small step backward at the viciousness in her words. It only took a moment for them to collect themselves, smirks sliding back onto their faces. Alex had never had the urge to spit in someone's face, then she did in that moment. She had always felt that a punch was more refined than spitting, but these guys deserved to be degraded.

"Well, then I guess I'm just going to kill you if I can't get anything from you. That will lead to the other bitch dropping the case." The black haired one, who was holding the gun said. "You're probably a horrid fuck anyway."

Before Alex could say anything, the gun muzzle was pressed into her chest. It jumped a little with each heartbeat as they stared each other down.

Alex knew that there should be fear, there should be tears, there should be begging for her life, but all she felt anger. It would be a cold day in hell before she let these pieces of shit kill her. That meant she had two options, attempt to disarm and get away or try and talk them out of shooting her. There was no point in attempting to appeal to their sense of humanity, it was obvious that they had none, but she could probably spin it into a way of them saving their own asses.

"Finally, a way to shut you up." The black haired one slid up to brush against her jaw and then back down. "You know, you're very pretty when you aren't talking. Are you sure we couldn't work something out?"

"I wish I could say the same for you, but you're just disgusting," Alex said between clenched teeth.

The men just laughed a dark and humorless laugh. Alex knew that she now only had one option, which was to get the gun away from them. Yet, the muzzle moved back down, right over her heart, right into the red star tattoo, and pressed hard. The black haired man took another step forward and licked his lips.

There was a sharp pain and a large crash, but there was no blood. For a long second Alex just stared at the other two men, neither of them sure what the hell had happened or where the black haired man had gone. Then there was a flash of red and blue and the assailant was being punched multiple times in the face.

"Now, is that any way to treat a lady or the Chinese food she's carrying?" Spiderman asked as he moved to stand between Alex and the other two men. "Why don't we just let her hurry home before the foods cold and we can have a chat about manners."

"We're going to teach you a lesson this time you fucking fairy," the shorter one growled.

There was the sound of a shot being fired and Spiderman jumped out of the way. Alex just stood there, pressed against the dumpster, unable to move. It was as if the little buffering wheel was up in her brain and she couldn't process anything. Spiderman bounced off the bricks, avoiding another shot, and gave Alex an ungracious shove behind the dumpster to get her out of the line of fire.

It was a difficult for Alex to stay focused on the fight, Spiderman moving so fast, but unable to get the three men all wrapped up in webs. The vigilante was able to get the gun out of the black haired one's hand, but that was the only progress he really made. The alley was too tight and it was obvious that Spiderman didn't want to really hurt them.

As if something switched on, Alex surged forward and tackled the shortest guy from behind. They both hit the cracked asphalt, Alex's knees getting bloodied, before she brought her knee up and slam it into his balls. The man's elbow came back at the same moment and winded her, causing her to roll off of him.

Spiderman's foot came down on the wrist of the other man's wrist as he got him onto the ground as well, but the blacked haired one got behind him. While he didn't have a gun, he did wrap an arm around Spiderman's throat and they both tumbled into the wall. Alex scrambled over and slammed her elbow into the other man's stomach to stop him from joining the fray. Spiderman got a bit of leverage and flipped over, stuck to the wall, and webbed the back haired man to the ground. Then he webbed the other two, making sure to cover their eyes.

Alex thought that was a bit excessive as she got to her feet, hissing from the scrapes on her knees. She was thinking up something witty to say to the web-slinger as she tilted her head up. However, it died on her lips and all the air left her lungs. This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be real.

"No," Alex said shaking her head and backing up, "no, no, no! Not again."

"Again?" Peter Parker asked as he jumped down onto the asphalt and picked up his mask, brushing it off. "You unmask superheroes often, Harper?"

"Why me? What did I do to have this keep happening to me?" Alex ran her hands through her hair as she paced over the prone bodies, pulling little sounds of protests when she stepped on a hand or stomach. It was like she had a tattoo on her forehead that read 'superheroes please come mess up my perfectly normal life at the most inconvenient times.' How many superheroes were running around New York anyway?

"You just found out about my secret identity, I'm pretty sure I should be the one freaking out." Peter pointed out, brushing the dirt off his mask.

"Peter?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut the hell up."

"What? I have a secret identity for a reason!"

They two of them just stood there and staring at one another, wrapped up in their own thoughts. Most of Alex's continued four letter words. Of all the students in her Biochemistry class, she was paired with Spiderman. Peter Parker was Spiderman.

"What do we do now?" Alex sighed, as the sound of sirens reached her ears. It wasn't like she could unlearn Peter's identity and it wasn't like she could avoid her lab partner. She had even started to, against her will, consider him a friend.

"Well, first we should get out of this alley since the boys in blue are on their way. They aren't all that fond of me and vigilante justice," Peter tugged the mask on, even though it was pretty pointless.

"Do you know that there is a task force that is tasked with finding vigilantes and you're on the top of their list?" Alex asked with a smile before looking down at the idiots on the ground. "One of that task force will probably be here because of this and I should talk to him. You get out of here, though."

"I'm not going to leave you alone with these guys," Peter gave the wiggling black haired man a swift kick in the ribs. "I mean, I've been following you for weeks trying to keep them from getting you alone. Especially after their first threat."

"So you were stalking me, I knew it!" All of strange questions and popping up out of nowhere suddenly made so much more sense. Popping up when she was jogging at dangerous times, being alone with Sandy where she could have been hurt or taken, and being sincere when asking if she was alright. It was still stalker behavior, but in a sweeter way.

"It wasn't stalking, it was…protection detail that you didn't know about," Peter protested.

"Yeah well," The sirens sounded as if they were on this block, "we'll talk about it later. These guys are tied up all pretty and you're not good to anyone in jail. Especially me, we have that project in Warren's class that I don't want to do alone."

"Oh, I see, purely selfish reasons," Peter laughed, but he crawled up the wall without any more protest. "I'll see you when I see you, Harper."

"You bet your cute little spandex ass, now get out of here." Alex walked over and grabbed the Chinese off the dumpster so that didn't get tipped over in the chaos.

"Stay out of trouble," Peter called before he disappeared onto the roof.

"Always has to have the last word," Alex muttered as police officers came into the alley, guns drawn. "Hello officers, could you call Detective Sousa for me? I believe this case falls into his jurisdiction."


	10. Chapter 10

"Today is an exciting day," Dr. Banner said with a smile as he paced between the lab tables. "You all have gotten through the boring orientation stuff and into what we're going to be focused on this year. How much do all of you know about organ transplants?"

There was a murmur about the lab, but no one said anything right away. Alex didn't know much, but she did know that there were medical researchers in the room who could answer the question. She also wasn't exactly working on a full night's sleep and she hadn't been able to talk to Peter that morning about the whole Spiderman business, so she had some things on her mind. Warren was watching them like a hawk, lab was cancelled, and Peter disappeared before Alex could even take a breath. Concentrating was not easy for her today, but then again, that wasn't exactly new.

"Alright, that is a very broad question, let me change it. What is the biggest risk in organ transplants after the surgery is done?" Dr. Banner reached into his desk drawer and started to pull out piles of folders

This was an easy question, but Alex looked around at the other interns instead of making eye contact. She didn't want to be a teacher's pet, especially after already being singled out by Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner that first day of orientation. It would be nice to make friends with at least one of the other interns, or at least have them want to talk to her during work. Then again, with how her luck was going, whoever spoke to her would probably end up having some sort of superhuman abilities, so maybe she should appreciate that no one noticed her.

"Organ rejection," Zachary finally spoke up. He was a Ph.D student from Atlanta that loved to sing along with his iPod softly as he worked. Alex would sometimes walk by his desk just to listen to him sing as his finger flew across the keyboard. He had a beautiful tenor voice.

"Exactly," Dr. Banner smiled as he walked between stations, laying folders on the corner of each. "People wait for years for a matching organ to become available, survive the surgery, and then their own body betrays them because it thinks that the foreign body is well…a foreign body. This is devastating to both patients and the family and leads to people having to be added to the list and wait for another miracle."

"It also sounds like a problem that a multidisciplinary team like this one, without any pressure from the people who make immunosuppressant drugs, can work to correct. We have some of the brightest minds in medicine, biochemistry, biology, and other areas that I am forgetting right now. I have the base of a serum that will keep the white blood cells from attacking the new organ and allow the patient to stay healthy for years to follow. I need your help to perfect it and get it ready for human trials. Everyone ready to start?"

There was a general murmur of agreement as Dr. Banner finished placing the folders and made his way back to the desk at the front. Alex's fingers itched to open the folder and see what was inside, but no one else had touched theirs, so she sat on her hands instead. Patience might not be one of Alex's virtues, but in the last twenty-three years of her life she had learned a very small bit of restraint when the occasion called for it.

"Inside the folders will be the names of your team members, these are the small groups that you will be working with before we come together as a larger task force. The lab assistants will head each group and be my eyes and ears," Dr. Banner waved his hand to the four people who walked into the lab, all smiling. "There is also a list of studies that I want you all to read. It is important to know what has come before our research to make our serum as successful as possible. Today will be introducing yourselves to your groups and then I want you looking at those studies."

Everyone flipped their folders open as if it was the first day at summer camp. Alex smiled when she saw that Zachary was part of her pod, along with someone named Zaria, Kyle, and Isabella with Liam as their assistant. Everyone looked up after reading their list, as if attempting to figure out who was who. Zachary met Alex's eye and smiled.

"Alright, five minutes to introduce yourselves and then get to reading," Dr. Banner looked toward the door, blushed, and then waved his hands that the group should get on with it.

Alex looked over her shoulder to see Natasha leaning by the door, smiling as Dr. Banner walked over to her. While there were very few people, man, woman, or something else, that wouldn't be flustered by Natasha smiling at them from the door, but there was something extra cute about it being Dr. Banner. Here was a man with seven Ph.D's acting like a high schooler with a crush.

"Miss Harper, is it?" Liam asked as she moved over to her pod, a soft Irish accent caught Alex by surprise. "Well, the pods all here. I expect you all to keep up with the reading and pull your weight. However, that doesn't mean we can't have a wee bit of fun kicking the other pods asses as well."

"I thought we were all a team," Zachary said with a wide smile.

"Oh, we are, but we're just going to be the best part of that team," Liam winked. "Now let's all share numbers and then you best get reading."

It only took a few minutes to set up the group text message before they dispersed back to their desks. Alex looked through the list of five studies that they were supposed to read through before flipping open a page in her notebook to take notes. It wasn't lost on Alex that she was now being paid to do what she was doing during her insomnia fueled nights, only a different topic.

"Miss Harper, Jarvis tells me that you haven't finished all the orientation modules yet. Is something wrong?" Banner asked softly as he walked over to her table after finishing his conversation with Natasha.

"I'm just having some problems with learning the computer programs is all, tech isn't my thing." Alex looked around and was glad to see that no one else was paying attention to the conversation. "I just need more time figuring out the programming since I have no experience."

"I could help you if you want, or-"

"No," Alex cut him off, then winced at how ungrateful she sounded. "No, thank you. I'll get it, I just need some time with it."

"Alright, well, if you need something just let Liam know. He's well versed in the programs and it's kind of his job." Dr. Banner gave her a small smile before moving through the rest of the lab, making sure everyone was hard at work.

Alex knew that she was being stubborn, but she was telling herself it was because she didn't want to be singled out any more than she already had been. The rest of her shift was spent reading through the studies and trying to move through another one of the modules. By the time everyone started heading out, there was one study left and three modules. As she moved to close the research study, the search bar caught her eye.

There was a good chance that Stark Industries had access to far more journals than her college library. Technically, she was off the clock, so there would be no harm in seeing what would pop up if she typed in something, like, say, PTSD. Thousands of results popped up on the screen, some titles she hadn't seen before.

"Is there something I can help you with, Miss Harper?" Jarvis asked, making Alex almost fall out of her chair. The few interns that were still in the lab looked in her direction as they left.

"Not scaring me to death would be a good start, Jarvis," Alex sighed as she closed out of the search window and started to pack up for the day.

"PTSD is not in the scope of the project that you are assigned," Jarvis pointed out as Alex logged out of her terminal and went to hang up her lab coat. "Is there is something else you are researching, I would be happy to help narrow down the search, after clearing it with Dr. Banner and Mr. Stark."

"What you mean is that I shouldn't go poking around the Stark Industry databases without a chaperone," Alex laughed as she slipped on her flip-flops and headed out of the door. "I promise you that there is no way in hell I could stumble onto something classified."

"That was not my concern, I have been tracking your progress through the orientation modules after all." Jarvis's voice had a lot of personality for something that was supposed to be monotone and automated, snarky bastard. "I was just offering my assistance for any other projects so that it would go quicker."

"As if my self-esteem couldn't get any lower, you swooped in to kick me while I'm down. Thank you for that Jarvis," Alex shook her head as she headed for the elevator, but then sighed. "Can you ask Dr. Banner and Mr. Stark if I'm allowed to go outside research, off the clock, and get back to me?"

"Of course, Miss Harper." Jarvis almost sounded amused. "Have a nice evening."

"You too, Jarvis." Alex realized as she stepped into the elevator that she was thanking an inanimate object. At least this object talked back.

Instead of a straight descent to the lobby, the elevator stopped. It was past five, so she wondered if someone was working late or if it was environmental services employees making the whole Tower sparkle. Alex had never seen a handprint on any of the bits of glass or metal in the place, even with all the people in and out. The doors slid open and Alex couldn't help but smile. She should have known.

"Well," Steve smiled as he stepped in and stood beside her, "how about we cash in that rain check?"

"So, did Jarvis tell you that I was leaving or have you been stalking me all by yourself?" Alex laughed as the elevator continued it's descent.

"Neither, it was a happy coincidence." Steve laughed when Alex gave him a look. "I was alerted to a news report about a woman being accosted in an alley and saved by Spiderman that I wanted to talk to you about, but mostly it was just dinner."

"Right," Alex rolled her eyes, but she couldn't help but smile. "You're in luck though, as I am avoiding my Russian homework and am a sucker for free food, but you're on thin ice Rogers."

"I guess I'll have to throw in dessert as well then." Steve waved a hand to show that she should exit the elevator first. "Though I am going to warn you, Jarvis has probably already told Tony that we're going to dinner together. It will start the rumors again."

"I can tell that you're devastated about that." Alex couldn't really bring herself to care all that much about it. All the other interns were gone so it wasn't like any of them would see her with Steve. It wasn't like he was a movie star and she had to worry about the paparazzi following him around. So the Avengers would think they're dating, she could deal with that.

"Hey, if they think I'm interested in you, they'll stop trying to set me up with Roberta in accounting. Humor me." Steve directed her over to his motorcycle that was parked right in front of the Tower and held out the helmet to her. "At least you're dressed for a ride today."

"Is that an innuendo Mr. Rogers?" Alex took the helmet and slipped onto the back of the bike, ignoring how comfortable it was to lock her arms around his waist and press against his back. How many women would kill to be in the exact same place?

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Miss Harper," Steve laughed before the motorcycle reeved to life underneath them.

There was something very comforting about being on the back of a motorcycle for Alex. Even if it wasn't the open road, just being in the flow of traffic and not having to think about anything was a nice respite from the normal chaos of her life. Just resting against Steve, the motorcycle rumbling, and knowing she was about to good food was the lightest she had felt in about a year.

Steve stopped the bike and kicked down the stand in front of a small store that read Eisenberg's Sandwiches, proclaiming that it had been around since 1929. This was the type of place that Alex loved to go to in New York City, not the Michelin star eating, but the little holes in the wall that were tucked away from the tourists. These tiny pearls waiting for someone with five bucks and an empty stomach.

"This is one of the only places in the city that is still here from when I was a child," Steve explained as he helped her off the bike. "Luckily, the sandwiches are still amazing and you look like you need some food."

It was a tiny store, there was barely enough room to walk between the two person tables and the counter with red stool seats. Some of the equipment being used didn't look like it had been updated since 1929, but it also added a bit of charm. Alex really couldn't see much else as there was a bustling dinner crowd, but Steve managed not only to move through the store, but find a table for two.

"Did you come here a lot when you were a kid?" Alex asked as she looked over the menu, which had an impressive selection for being so small.

"A poor kid from Brooklyn? Nah, but Buck did take me here if either of us got some money from something, which wasn't often. He took me here the day he told me that he got drafted and was leaving soon." Steve had a soft smile on his face, but his eyes were sad. It killed Alex that she was so wrapped up in her loss of James that she hadn't checked in with Steve about how he was feeling. Then again, even when she did, he rarely talked about what was going on with him. She wished he would, it would be nice to talk to someone else who loved James.

"You know, I forget that he was in the military all the time, isn't that weird?" Alex said, trying to start the conversation in the most awkward way possible, but deciding to push ahead. "I mean, like, I know that Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes was in the military, obviously, but I forget that the guy I read about in history books is the same guy that lived in my apartment for a week. I mean, it happens with you too, but not to the same extent."

"That's just because I'm pretty disappointing in real life," Steve laughed as he leaned back in his chair.

"That's not what I meant and you know it." Alex folded up her menu and smacked his arm with it. "It's just, you seemed so…proper in the history books, not someone I could have dinner with in a tiny sandwich shop in Manhattan. The couple decades age different notwithstanding, of course."

"Speaking of dinner, what do you want?" Steve gave her a real, open, and bright smile. While he usually had a smile for her, it had been a while since she had seen one this relaxed. It lifted her heart a little bit. Steve deserved some happiness.

Alex ended up getting a chicken salad sandwich with bacon along with a strawberry milkshake and an order of onion rings. Steve got a tuna melt, fries, and a chocolate milkshake. All that was missing was a poodle skirt, since Steve was already in a brown bomber jacket and white T-shirt, and they could have been on a date back in the fifties. While Alex didn't want everyone in the tower thinking that she and Steve were an item, it wasn't an unpleasant thought that these random strangers could wonder if the two of them might be dating.

"So," Alex crunched into one of her onion rings, "I know that you didn't ask me here just to show me a restaurant from your childhood. Let's get to the nitty gritty of it all? Everything alright?"

"Define alright," Steve gave her a small smile, but it slipped off his face when Alex gave him a look over his sandwich. "I just…after that call I wanted to make sure that you were going okay, honestly doing okay. And then Hill told me that there was another Spiderman incident and while the female victim was kept anonymous, I thought it might be you."

"Hill has a big fucking mouth," Alex muttered into her milkshake, ignoring Steve's gaze as she attempted to come up with a diplomatic answer. After a couple seconds, she decided that the truth was the best way, especially with Steve. "I was attacked yesterday, but it wasn't anything too serious, and I was saved by Spiderman. The police are handling it and other than being tired, I'm doing fine."

"Really, because you don't look fine. No offense," Steve added quickly. "You are very pretty, but an exhausted pretty. Are the nightmares worse now that you've been in a dangerous situation again? Do you need help? Also, who is this Spiderman guy? Can you trust a vigilante who wears head to toe spandex?"

"Steve, technically you are a guy in a spandex suit too, remember?" Alex was attempting to lighten the mood, but it was Steve's turn to give her a look. "It was the same assholes from the Marquee club, they weren't that happy that someone was witness to their assault and wanted to make me not remember much. Spiderman had been following them and stepped in. I think Spiderman just wants to help, being somewhere the police can't and the Avengers are too busy to handle, ya know?"

"I appreciate what this guy is trying to do, but he's going to get himself or someone else hurt." Steve shook his head but then he gave her a hint of a smirk. "What is it with you and dangerous alleyways anyway?"

"What can I say, I like a bit of danger," Alex returned his smirk.

"I know, you're causing me to have grey hairs, which is impressive with the super soldier serum and all." Steve grabbed a napkin to wipe something off his cheek. "I know that I've been busy recently, but I want you to call me if you need help, or Sam, alright? What's the purpose of being friends with superheroes if you don't let them help?"

"Getting them to buy me dinner now and again?" Alex said, which got Steve to laugh. After that, the discussion turned to her school work and working with Doctor Banner.

"I have to admit, a lot of this is going over my head. Buck was the science geek, I was more of an art kid. When Bruce and Tony start talking, it's a different language and I don't understand it. I'm just a simple boy from Brooklyn and the best I could manage was memorizing the periodic table," Steve laughed as he finished off his sandwich.

"If it makes you feel any better, I am two semesters away from having my degree in Biochemistry and I don't know what Dr. Banner is saying sometimes," Alex waved an onion ring about as if that didn't matter. "I don't even think if I get my Ph.D, and I have to graduate first, I'll be a fraction of as smart as he is."

Alex pushed away the bubble of anxiety that came when she thought about graduation and focused on Steve instead. She never really thought about how Steve would feel out matching intellectually at the Tower with Banner and Tony. True, Steve was technically genius and a photographic memory, but it took more to be as innovative as Tony and Bruce. It had to be annoying to feel inferior all the time.

"Hey," Steve nudged her leg with his knee under the table, pulling her out of her thoughts. "Whatever you're thinking about, stop it. You'll develop wrinkles."

"Thank you for your concern," Alex slurped up the rest of her milkshake and pushed it away. "I was just thinking about annoying if must be to live with people who don't talk about the same interests that you have, nothing serious."

"Which is why I asked you out to dinner," Steve winked.

Alex felt herself blush a little and focused on finishing off her onion rings. She knew that Steve wasn't flirting with her seriously, just being charming, and it was annoying that it was working. It didn't help that Steve was also extremely attractive while also being kind and caring. Why wasn't he dating someone?

"Any news about our favorite world traveler that I should know about?" Alex didn't look up from her food, both to help hide the fading blush and also so that Steve's expression wouldn't betray him before he answered. "Did that phone call get you guys anywhere?"

"We traced the call to Europe, but that's about as far as we got before it was lost. Sam's gone over there to see if he can pick up the trail, but he hasn't found much," Steve sighed as he polished off the last of his food. "I feel selfish sending him out on these wild goose chases, but it's not like I have the time to go with…everything."

"Do me a favor? Whenever Sam gets back, don't tell him about the Spiderman thing? I'd rather not get lectured again." Alex missed Sam and the clarity that he brought to her life, but she could do without the judgement of her life choices. If she wanted that, she would call her brother, who she needed to call and finalize plans for when he was coming to visit her. Another thing to add to her ever growing list.

"Maybe you shouldn't keep getting into trouble and you wouldn't get lectured," Steve said with a giant smile.

"It took us weeks to even get together for dinner. If I didn't get into trouble I would never see you," Alex pointed out with a laugh.

"You also wouldn't see that police officer that you keep mentioning. Michael was it?" Steve had a sly smile on his face as he sat back with a sigh. "First name basis with the law, it must be serious."

"He had the misfortune of being one of the officers that helped me with the Marcus incident last year and then happened to be promoted to the vigilante task force, as apparently they are starting to become a problem in New York. Nothing serious about it at all." Michael Sousa was a good man, one of the few that Alex knew, which meant that she would never date him. While he was a police officer, he really didn't deserve any of the mess that seemed to find it's way into her life.

"A police officer would be a step up from your previous boyfriends," Steve pulled out his wallet and slid out a couple bills. "Why not give the poor boy a chance?"

"Why don't you give one of the poor girls that Natasha throws at you a chance?" Alex countered with a raised eyebrow. "I'm sure one of them is interesting enough to take out to dinner, especially if you're slumming it with me."

"Why do you do that?" Steve's voice had an edge to it.

"Do what?" Alex was startled by the sudden frustration in Steve's voice.

"Act like you're not good enough to be with me, as if it is some hardship for me to spend time with you?" Steve leaned forward so that she had to look him in the eyes.

"It's just…" Alex had to look away, fingers coming up to play with her earrings as she attempted to come up with a good answer.

"You could be, like, having dinner with dignitaries or the president or Tony Stark and Bruce Banner or being briefed on national security matters. People who are way more important and interesting than me." Alex shrugged at her very inelegant explanation. "Do you think if anyone in the restaurant knew who you were and who I was, they wouldn't wonder why you were out with me?"

"Alexandra, if there is one thing I've learned, it's that people's opinions are far less important than your opinion of yourself." Steve reached out and grabbed her hand so that she had to look at him. "No one has ever made me do something I didn't want to do, including coming out and having dinner with you. If I'm here, I want to be here."

"Is this the part where you confess your undying love for me, right?" Alex leaned forward with a dramatic flutter of her eyelashes, the conversation becoming too serious for her to handle with no sleep. "And don't call me Alexandra."

"You're hopeless," Steve threw his napkin at her before getting to his feet. "Come on, let's get you home so you can get some sleep."

The night air was colder now that the sun had set, making the ride back to the apartment extremely enjoyable. She had forgotten how much she loved being on a motorcycle. Raphael, her first serious boyfriend, had given her one of the ones from his garage to use, but obviously that had been taken back when he went to jail. Then there was that one time that she snuck out at sixteen and was gone for three days because she almost joined a motorcycle gang she met at the bar. When she finally came home, Grace Harper didn't even looking up from chopping potatoes, and told Alex that the trash needed to be taken out and her laundry was on her bed. Somehow, the fact that she never even rose her voice stung more than if she had screamed at Alex.

"Do you need me to walk you up to your place?" Steve asked when he parked out in front of her building, turning off the engine, and looking over his shoulder as Alex undid the helmet.

"I'm pretty sure I can get up to my apartment without being shot, stabbed, or assaulted in some fashion, but thanks for the offer," Alex laughed as she swung off her bike as her phone started to ring. "Unless there is a Hydra threat that you didn't tell me about."

"That's not funny," Steve said. "You should get that."

Alex rolled her eyes as she picked up the phone, not even looking at the screen, and said hello. There was nothing but static on the other end and Alex was about to hang up, figuring it was a telemarketer, when she heard an intake of breath.

"Alex, is that you?" James's voice sounded far away, but the way her heart went into her throat, she knew it had to be him.

"Yes, yes it's me. Where are you?" Alex spoke rapidly, looking up at Steve. It had to be something in her voice because Steve was off his motorcycle in a moment and beside her, leaning down to attempt to hear the conversation.

"I think…I think I might have called you before. I can't really remember," there was a sigh on the other end of the line. "I'm sorry about that. I know you didn't want to hear from me again."

"No, no, James, that's not…that's not true," Alex closed her eyes, her thoughts in chaos. "Where are you, are you okay?"

"I will attempt not to bother you again, but…it is nice to hear your voice," James admitted slowly. "I'm just trying to stay away from those who would use me or imprison me. Don't come looking for me, please."

"James wait!" But the other end of the call has already gone dead.

"I'll get Tony to trace the call, maybe this time-" Steve is already pulling his own cell phone out and putting it to his ear.

Alex just stood there, not hearing Steve's conversation, trying to not start sobbing in the middle of the sidewalk. James thought she hated him, that she never wanted to talk to him again, because of how they left things last year. Sure, that the time she stated that it was better if they goodbye, but that was before she realized just how deeply he had gotten under her skin in just a week. It wasn't because she hated him that she told him to leave, it was because she was in love with him, and that scared her as much as the threat of death.

"Hey," Steve put a hand on her shoulder, seeing the tears in her eyes, "we're going to find him. He's alright and lucid, that's a good sign. Try not to worry about it."

"Yeah, right," Alex gave a shaky smile as she hastily brushed away some tears. "Not worrying about a super soldier assassin with a spotty memory out in the world all by himself. Why would I worry about that?"

"Come here," Steve pulled her into a tight hug. "Buck can take care of himself, always has been able to, even before the metal arm. I'm going to find him and bring him home, but he'll be fine until then."

"He asked that we don't come looking for him," Alex said against his chest, finding comfort in his arms.

"Yeah, well, remember when I said that no one has ever made me do something I didn't want to do," Steve pulled Alex away a little so that she looked up at him, gently wiping away a tear. "I'll find him. Do you trust me?"

"Yes." Steve was probably the only person she trusted implicitly.

"Alright, now get upstairs and get some sleep. I'll call you when I know something." Steve gave her another tight hug, resting his cheek against the top of her head, before letting her go.

"Just…be careful out there, alright?" Alex let go of him and wrapped her arms around herself.

"You too," Steve gave her another smile.

Alex gave him a little finger wave before heading into the apartment building, Henry opening the door for her. She looked over her shoulder to see that Steve waited until she was inside to get onto his bike and roaring off. Always the gentlemen. She was surprised he didn't walk her up to her apartment even against her protest.

While it was cooler outside, the apartment was stuffy from the windows being closed since she left that morning. Steve was right, she should sleep, but there was so much nervous energy in her body that she could barely sit. After pacing the apartment for a few minutes, she pulled out her cell phone and hit Jake's contact picture. It took him three rings to pick up.

"Lexie, everything okay? I'm about to go to work," Jake sounded a little breathless, as if he had to run and grab his phone.

"Right, night shift, sorry about that." Alex moved through the apartment, opening windows, needing to do something.

"No worries, it's better than me having to send out a search party to get you to return my text. What have you been up to?" Jake was speaking as if he was doing something, like putting on his work boots, while talking to her.

"Oh, you know…" Alex trailed off, figuring telling him about the super soldiers and the fact that she was assaulted last night was not a good idea. "Just my internship and class, trying to be social when I can. I'm starting an extra credit assignment on Saturday. Nothing too exciting."

"Nothing exciting? When do you sleep, Lex?" Jake's voice had a joking tone to it, but after this summer she knew he was worried.

"I'm a big girl, Jake. I can take care of myself. How are things in the sunshine state?" Alex felt a little calmer talking with Jake, enough that she could flop onto her bed. There were articles that needed to be read, papers that needed to be written, and about a million other things she should be doing, but there was no way she'd be in the mental space to do them tonight.

Jake filled her in about the waves he tried to catch that morning and Felix, the stray cat that decided to live around his condo. It was also so nice to hear a smile in Jake's voice and hear about normal problems. It had always been a carefree soul and the beach bum lifestyle seemed to really suit him.

"I'm gonna have to go in a minute, so we're on for around midterms right? Before the weather gets bad?" Jake asked. "You work way too much and need someone to take you out onto the town."

"That sounds great Jake," Alex said and actually meant it. It was weird to think about her family in the city, they were such separate entities, but she did miss her brother. Besides, it wasn't as if Alex would ever get to show her parents the city as her mother refused to step foot in New York.

"Great, I'll book the flight and then give you the details," Jake sounded relieved, as if he expected push back. "Now I really have to go, Lexie. Talk to you later, be good."

"I'm always good. Stay out of trouble Jake,"

Alex knew that she should get out of bed, but her whole body was heavy. Hadn't Steve told her to get some sleep? Maybe, for the first time ever, she should take his advice. Besides, it wasn't like she wouldn't be woken up at three in the morning with heart pounding nightmares. Might as well take the rest while she could.


	11. Chapter 11

"Where's the fire, Parker?" Alex called as Peter all but ran out of their lab section on Friday. She had to dodge other students, calling out apologies as Peter seemed to have no problem moving through the crowd. He was pretty thin, but it seemed a little odd that he was so good at bobbing and weaving.

Peter pretended that he hadn't heard Alex, even though she knew that he had from how he hunched his shoulders even lower. He got to the stairwell first, but with a burst of speed, Alex was able to grab onto his arm. Peter successfully wiggled out of her grasp, but his backpack was not so lucky. Papers, pens, a calculator, and gadgets that Alex had no idea what their use was went skittering all over the stairwell. There was a collective groan from the other students, and some jeers, as people moved around the carnage.

"You're like a one woman wrecking ball, aren't you?" Peter sighed as he started to gather up the gadgets before they were trodden on by the caffeine filled zombies of the student body.

"Well, if you would have stopped to talk to me, this wouldn't have happened," Alex hissed as she gathered up the papers while attempting not to drop any of her own things. "I said we were going to have a conversation and now you're acting like I'm a leaper."

"I'm busy," Peter grabbed everything, leaving some pens to their fate, and shoved everything into his bag.

"Make time," Alex snapped as she shoved the papers into his chest. She was about to continue her rant, but the top piece of paper caught her eye. It was an application that held the crest of Imperial College of London for a foreign exchange program.

"Harper, I get it, we need to talk, but there is something happening right now that I need to get to. Do you get me?" Peter gave her a meaningful look as he shoved the papers into his bag.

"Are you going to England?" Alex countered, not really paying attention to the look or what he was trying to tell her.

"Alex, please…" Peter gave a huff as he ran his fingers through his hair. "How about this, come to dinner at my house tomorrow. You'll get free food, we can work on the project, and you can ask your questions, okay? I've gotta go."

"Alright, alright, fine," Alex was a little confused by everything. "Text me the address later."

Peter gave her a small smile before dashing down the rest of the steps and disappearing outside. Alex moved at a much slower pace, wondering why Peter would be looking to go to London, especially knowing what he did at night. She also didn't understand why she felt so upset about it, only a week ago, she thought he was a stalker. It kept nagging at her, even during her time at Stark Tower, and it was creative enough to work its way into her nightmares.

Saturday was a grey morning as Alex got up to start getting ready for her first day working on the extra credit assignment. Professor Warren had stated that a driver would pick her up promptly at eight and Alex had hit snooze three times, but she still took time to check twitter. After the normal memes and conversations about celebrities that Alex really didn't care about, there was a news story about a scientist's apartment that was completely ransacked the previous afternoon. Spiderman had been seen around the building, but it was unclear if he had been the one who when into the place.

"Well, that is something to ask him about," Alex sighed as she continued her preparations. Hadn't Jake mentioned something about a scientist being attacked when she talked to him at some point? It could be a coincidence, but it seemed rather…concerning.

Alex's phone started to ring, making her jump. The fear turned to confusion when she saw it was the front desk number.

"Johnathan, is there a problem?" Alex asked as she finished dressing.

"There is a…man sitting out front in an SUV that said he was waiting for you. Should I call the cops?" Johnathan, who was new on the weekends, asked.

"No, someone was supposed to send a driver for me, I'm guessing that's him." Alex said slowly, wondering what this guy looked like to make the doorman so concerned.

Alex saw exactly why Jonathan was concerned when she got down to the lobby. The man standing outside the SUV was large, stone faced, and looked as if his nose had been broken at least three times. He just nodded his head as he opened the door for her, never speaking a word, and then he started to drive her toward the Ravencroft Institute. Alex wondered what the hell she had gotten herself into as a couple rain drops splashed onto the windshield.

"Oh this can't be right," Alex looked through the windshield between the wiper blades at the large stone structure that loomed up in front of the car. It reminded her of a medieval castle that had been turned into a prison at some point. She wasn't exactly sure what she had been expecting, but this was far more foreboding.

"Ravencroft Institute, state your business," the guard at the outer fence asked, hand on the gun at his hip, when the driver rolled down the window.

"Alexandra Jade Harper, student assistant to Dr. Miles Warren." The driver's voice was deep and gravelly, which Alex realized she should have expected. Of course the man who looked as if he used to work for the mob had a six pack a day voice. Maybe he was a mobster at night and this was just his day job. Who was she to judge?

"She's on the list. Drive through, she can pick up her badge and sign the papers at the front desk." The guard didn't even look into the back seat before taking a step back and tapping his ear. "Open the outer gates for a visitor."

Soon the car stopped in front of a large stone arch, the doors obscured by the gloom of the surrounding stone and the dark clouds that were releasing a light drizzle onto the asphalt. Alex's mind suddenly went to the line from Dante "Abandon hope all ye who enter here", not exactly what you wanted to think about when entering a psychiatric facility, especially one that housed criminals.

"I will wait out here for you." The driver unlocked the doors before slipping on his sunglasses, even though it was raining, and folded his arms over his chest.

Alex waited for a second, attempting to collect herself, but staring at the darkened doorway wasn't making her feel any more excited about her decision about taking this extra credit assignment. Finally, Alex sent out a quick text to Peter, stating that if he didn't hear from her by the time for dinner, to send out the National Guard, and got out of the SUV. As she approached the door, Alex realized that sending a vague text like that to a vigilante might not be the best idea, but she was hoping that he was so busy or sleeping and he wouldn't see it until she was done with the interview and sample collection.

There was a little comfort in the satisfying click of her heels as she approached the front desk, smoothing out her skirt in the hopes of calming her nerves. She had no idea what the dress code was for interviewing someone who was deemed criminally insane, so she went with professional. Red sweater, black pencil skirt, panty hose even, and black pumps. Her hair was down to hide her earrings, but she still didn't feel all that confident or professional.

The interior of Ravencroft Institute wasn't any more inviting than the outside. The floors were concrete, the walls were gray, and the ceilings were just a latticework of exposed pipes. Alex had been in prison before, and this had the same feel with industrial touches. The front desk was located behind bullet proof glass, and neither of the guards even attempted to give a smile as Alex approached the opening.

"Hello, I'm Alex – Alexandra Harper," Alex's voice shook a little. "Professor Warren sent me to collect samples and interview one of your…patients?"

"Sign in and take the clipboard to fill out the forms." Neither guard looked up at Alex or corrected her use of the word patient instead of prisoner.

For imposing at the building seemed from the outside, the lack of basic curiosity from the guards was even more disconcerting. In one of the cracked plastic chairs that were just begging to snag her panty hose, Alex stifled a yawn as she skimmed over the paperwork. The forms were the run of the mill stuff, if you get murdered or maimed, you can't sue us. They were forms she had signed a number of times, but they seemed more menacing when she realized that the likelihood of being maimed, murdered, or other horrible things were much more likely here.

"Finished," Alex attempted to sound chipper as she slid the clipboard to the guards.

"All personal belongings will go into a locker," one guard said as he got to his feet, heaving a huge sigh. "You will be pat down as well to make sure you're not smuggling anything in. Doctor Warren has had equipment approved and it will be given to you when you get to the subject in question."

"The extra credit better be freaking worth it," Alex muttered as she picked locker nineteen, her lucky number, and punched in the code to lock it. Not having anything to defend herself with, especially after the alley attack, made her even more uncomfortable.

"Alright, come through," the guard waved here to walk through the metal detector, which thankfully didn't beep because of her earrings, before a thorough pat down. "Here's your visitor's badge, which you will need to show a guard at every door. There is also a panic button on the clip in case anything happens. You're going to cell G-9."

That was it, not even any explanation how the panic button worked, before the guard disappeared back into his little control room. There was the loud click of the doors locking behind her. The sound of her heels clicking was no longer comforting as she walked down the hallway. Alex showed her badge to the guard standing at the elevator and she hoped he was armed more than necessary. He punched in a code to a pad that had no markings on it and waited without saying a word. It was like a Buckingham Palace guard that was armed for the zombie apocalypse.

The door slid open, showing another guard waiting in the small silver box the badge. Alex thanked the guard outside, though he didn't even look at her, before stepping inside. There were no buttons in the elevator, but it started to descend soundlessly. Alex was pretty sure she had a nightmare like this before, the doors were going to open and there was going to be a boogeyman there. Though if it was a more recent nightmare, it would be The Winter Soldier, or just a tidal wave of blood. You know, super cheery things.

"It's seems scarier than it is, Miss," the guard said, making Alex jump. "We have only had one security breach, about a year ago, and since then they have gone a bit overboard. Even that situation, it wasn't anything major."

"Better safe than sorry, right?" Alex gave him a nervous smile. The fact that there had been a security breach, even if it was a year ago, was not exactly comforting.

"Especially with the people we have here, but there is no reason for you to look so jittery, you'll be safe." The guard gave her a reassuring smile underneath the visor of his riot gear. "You don't want to let them smell fear. It'll just make them rowdy."

"Just like every other man I've ever met," Alex muttered, not completely reassured by that information.

"You need anything, just push that panic button. Take no prisoners." The guard gave that one last piece of advice as the elevator stopped.

Alex wasn't sure if that was guard humor or not, but she couldn't bring herself to laugh. Instead, she took a deep breath, a nod of acknowledgment and stepped out of the elevator. Alex put a little steel in her spine as the doors slid closed, and started forward. If there was one thing she was good at, it was bullshitting confidence.

It was surprisingly quiet, no screaming, laughing, or whimpering. After seeing so many movies set in insane asylums, she had expected pandemonium, but everything seemed controlled and contained. Each cell had a glass door with a safe like lock and a guard positioned alongside each in the shadows, as the light was pretty atrocious. None of the guards looked at her as she passed. The sound of her heels on the concrete floor mixed with the sound of water dripping somewhere, unnerving Alex more than screaming or manic laughing would have.

Cell G-9 was easy enough to find as there was a metal cart with supplies and a plastic chair outside the glass door. Alex said hello to the guard, who didn't move a muscle, before taking a deep breath and looking into the cell. The lighting was no better, but there didn't seem to be anyone in there.

"Don't mind Jason," a voice in the back corner of the cell called, making Alex jump. "He's not supposed to talk to the dangerous criminals and must think that it also applies to pretty girls."

The voice was rather gentle, and cultured, which was surprising given the less than gentle and cultured surroundings. Alex's eyes finally adjusted to the low lighting and could make out a pair of legs in orange cloth and white prison shoes against the back wall, though the rest of the body was still impossible to see.

"My name is Alexandra Harper and I'm Professor Warren's assistant on the research project that you're a participant in," Alex took a seat on the edge of the chair, crossing her legs in an attempt to appear calm and professional. Don't let them smell fear and take no prisoners. She had a job to do and she was going to do it, end of story.

"Well, you sound smarter than the last psychologist they sent to analyze me," the voice continued, white shoes shaking a little. "The poor thing could barely get a word out, his teeth were chattering so badly. That begs the question, how did the good professor headhunt you for this particular assignment?"

"I'm not a psychologist, I'm a biochemist," Alex wished she could see his face, it would make her feel a little less nervous. "And I wasn't headhunted, I'm one of his students and this is an extra credit assignment. I just have to collect some skin and blood samples and then conduct a short interview. I hope that isn't an issue, Mr…"

"Your honesty, as well as your company, are refreshing," the legs disappearing into the shadows before the speaker walked into the light provided by the one recessed bulb in the ceiling. "Mr. Osborn, Harry Osborn to be precise, but you can just call me Harry. No need to be formal if we are going to be seeing each other every week."

Alex had pictured what the person on the other side of the glass would look like since she had said yes meeting them, but the former head of one of the most powerful companies in the world had never even popped into her mind. It was all over the news that Harry Osborn had a nervous breakdown and that was why he was removed as the company CEO, but she had no idea it had landed him in a criminal asylum. What had he done to wind up here?

"Miles, Professor Warren, didn't tell you who you were coming to see, did he?" Harry's smile was soft as he sat down on the edge of his cot. His hair was a mess, but other than a jagged patch of scaly looking skin on the side of his face, he didn't look all that mutated. What had caused the mutation? Something at Oscorp?

"He did fail to mention that the person I was coming to interview was worth probably over a million dollars, but what else is new?" This whole assignment was bizarre.

"I know that feeling, never getting the whole truth to ensure that you do what someone wants. Since I was a child, everyone has always been after something from me, but no one was ever honest about it." Harry tilted his head as he studied her for a moment, before giving the ghost of a smile. "Also, I want to point out, I am worth a lot more than a million, even locked up in here."

"I will keep that in mind," Alex gave him a smile as she looked down at the clipboard on the metal cart. "Now, it sounds like the psychologist when through these questions with you before, so I'm guessing you're primed with the right answers. Is that right?"

"If it was anyone else who asked, I would say no," Harry laughed, but it wasn't dark or twisted. It was light and soft, and sounded very out of place in this setting. "However, I like you, Alexandra. Everyone else tried to adopt the persona they thought would best get me to talk, nice and cordial or stern and cruel. You are just talking to me like a person."

"Last I checked, you are still a person, so I don't see any reason to treat you otherwise." The conversation was alarmingly comfortable and Alex found herself even liking Harry a little bit. "Also, please, call me Alex or A.J. Alexandra is just so…

"You don't like Alexandra? I think it fits you, regal and gentle." Harry tilted his head as he studied her. "You expected me to be less sane than I am right now, didn't you?"

"I didn't really have expectations," Alex looked down at the clipboard again, reminding herself that she had a job to do. "So, are you going to answer these questions or not?"

"How about this?" Harry crossed legs and shimmied to the end of the bed, blue eyes sparkling. "For every question you ask me, I get to ask you one."

"You can ask, but that doesn't mean that I'll answer," Alex conceded. "You're also not getting any blood or skin samples from me."

"Fair enough, you start," Harry gave her a smile, showing slightly pointy teeth.

Alex asked the first question and Harry was answering before she finished asking it. However, he was patient and repeated himself slowly, pausing so that she could easily transcribe it accurately.

"Where are you from? It's obvious that you aren't native to New York," Harry propped his head up on his folded hands.

"A tiny Midwest town on a not so tiny farm," Alex relaxed in the chair a little. Harry had to be close to her age, something she would have to google later, but in the slip on shoes and jumpsuit, he seemed younger.

The rest of the hour continued in the same vein, Harry asking innocent questions and Alex providing vague answers. While she felt relaxed, telling a mentally unstable criminal detailed facts about herself did not seem wise, but she saw no problem with her favorite color or what her zodiac sign was.

"I have a question that's not part of the assignment, if you don't mind," Alex said as she motioned for the guard to open the little area in the door that would allow Harry to stick out his arm for her to collect the samples.

"I get to ask another question then," Harry said as he rolled up his sleeve and slid his arm out without any protest.

Alex snapped on a pair of gloves and opened the container with medical supplies. It was rather simple, a couple vials of blood and a small skin sample. Relatively noninvasive and painless, if you weren't scared of needles. Professor Warren had given her a lesson about how to properly collect samples when she agreed to the assignment, but her hand still shook a little as she placed her hand on his arm to make sure he didn't flinch.

"Calm down, Alex," Harry said softly, looking up through his lashes and giving her a smile. "I promise one little needle stick isn't going to bother me. What's your question?"

"Earlier, you said 'less sane than I am right now'" Alex slid the needle into Harry's arm, he didn't even flinch. "Does that mean that, because of whatever happened, you have a fluctuating mental state?"

Alex knew that the likelihood that whatever happened to Harry had nothing to do with Hydra, but a fluctuating mental state made her think of James. If she could get a brain scan on how his brain functioned during one of these episodes, maybe that data could be used in her research on a way to help James once he was found.

"Whatever happened, well, I did it to myself," Harry said as Alex gently cut out the skin sample. "I had a rare genetic condition and there's no cure. Slowly, I would have become an invalid, dying before my time, a husk of a human being. The only thing my father ever gave me."

Alex looked up at Harry and was surprised to see that he was watching her intently. There was something about the way his blue eyes focused on her, the strange light behind them, that sent a small shiver down her spine. She could feel his pulse hammering as she pressed gauze to the small incision. There was an itch in her wrist, but she ignored it as she secured the samples, disposed of everything, and stripped off her gloves.

"At Oscorp," Harry continued, voice even softer that he was basically whispering, "we had a cure of sorts, but it hadn't been tested on humans. Well, it had accidentally been tested on one. It was my only hope, so…I took it."

"It didn't go well," Alex realized that they were almost nose to nose through the glass, feeling as if she moved away she would break something. This was not an answer to the question she asked, but it was still fascinating and she didn't want Harry to stop talking.

"Well, my condition has slowed if not been stopped completely due to the mutations that the serum caused," Harry gave her a ghost of a smile. "However, at times, I'm not myself. There are physical transformations as well and they're not pretty."

"Well, that will remind me to never skip the proper scientific procedures in my research," Alex tried to joke, but it was an awful attempt. "I'm sorry, about the illness and…what came after."

"You shouldn't be," Harry pulled his arm back, rubbing the back of his hand as the opening was secured once again. "The transformation, it taps right into my rage and I don't care what's right or wrong, just what I want. Sometimes I remember what I do, sometimes it is something I've wanted to do all along, other times…"

They were standing there, looking through the glass at one another, deep blue eyes looking into light blue. There were equally deep purple bags under both sets of eyes. Alex realized that she was barely breathing, completely entranced with what he might say next. It felt weird, to be staring at someone she had just met and hanging on his every word. Was she really so tired that he was having such an effect on her or did it have to due to the setting that the conversation was taking place in?

"Other times I do something I regret, like kill an innocent woman, one about your age, just to hurt someone who had wronged me." Harry was studying her face, to see how she took the news. "They didn't put me in here because I look good in orange."

Alex finally blinked and took a step back, processing the information she had just been given. It wasn't like she didn't know more than her fair share of people who had blood on their hands. Steve during the war, Sam as well, James had killed people right in front of her, and that didn't even count the people at Stark Industries. Harry seemed genuinely upset by what he had done, but did that change the gravity of the act?

"Thank you for your time, Mr. Osborn," Alex said as she got ready to leave, turing to the guard. "Yours as well, Jason."

"Harry, please, and I meant what I said about your honesty being refreshing. That's why I told you the truth, I'm hoping that you come back next week for the next interview. I do like you better than anyone else that Miles, the professor, has sent me."

"Take care of yourself, Harry," Alex said with a small smile. "I'll see you next week."

Alex walked down the hall, feeling a little braver, letting her eyes drift over to the cell doors. There was nothing to see in most of them with the small glimpse that she got, but in a couple she would see the back of a head. There was only one that had a man standing at the door, looking out at her. He was older with wispy blond hair and round glasses. The expression on his face as she passed could only have been described as concerned. Then she was passed the window and stepping into the elevator.

There must have been a changing of the guard while Alex was interviewing Harry because it was a silent elevator ride up to the main floor. While the whole experience was far more than she had expected, there was a glimmer of hope that this extra credit might do some actual good for more than just her GPA. Alex was going to have to ask Professor Warren about what his research was actually focused on to understand the scope of what they were doing.

Alex was patted down again before the doors were unlocked and Alex was able to collect her things. The slight drizzle had advanced to a full-blown thunderstorm when Alex dashed to the waiting SUV. It wasn't until they had pulled away from Ravencroft that she looked at her phone. Six missed calls and two voicemails. A heart in her throat, Alex listened to the first one.

"Harper, it's me, Peter Parker. I'm not sure what you meant by your text, but you not answering your phone is not doing a lot for my anxiety. Now, I know you don't like me following you around, I get it, you're an independent woman and everything, but when you send me that text and I then can't trace your cell phone signal, that goes way past anxiety. I know that I have been ignoring you and avoiding you, and I'm sorry, but like this is just cruel and unusual punishment. I invited you to dinner! I promise we'll talk! As soon as you get this, I mean the immediate moment, call me." Peter spoke so quickly that it took Alex two listens to the message before she caught all of it.

Alex sent Peter a quick text, saying that she was alright and would call him once she was back at her apartment. While she doubted that would placate her lab partner, she didn't really want to have the conversation with the possible mob member by night driver able to eavesdrop. Instead she hit the other voicemail to listen to, hoping that Peter hadn't done something stupid like call in a missing person's report.

The first couple seconds of the message was just silence, and Alex was about to hang up, before there was a deep inhale on the other line.

"Alexandra," James's voice was shaky and heavily accented. He started talking then, but it was in fluent Russian. Alex picked up a word here and there, but it was mostly nonsense to her. There was no pain or anxiety in the tone of his voice, but Alex could have thrown her phone out of frustration. Apparently, he had slipped back into his programming a bit, but at least he didn't sound in danger.

The voicemail ended, but Alex couldn't pull the phone away from her ear. Each phone call was a little glimmer of hope attached to a blade inserted straight into her heart. To hear his voice, to know he was alive, made butterflies awaken in her stomach. It also made her remember that when he was free of the programming, he wanted nothing to do with her. God, how did this become her life?

"Miss Harper, thank goodness, I was worried about you," Jonathan said as he opened the door to let her out of the SUV. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine Jonathan, thank you." Alex gave him a smile as they headed into the apartment building. "It was part of a job, I'm sorry to not warn you."

"I don't like the look of that man, Miss." Jonathan shook his head as he went behind the front desk. "Please be careful."

"Always." Alex was starting to get tired of all the males in her life believing that she needed a bodyguard. Yes, she got into trouble more than your normal citizen, but she was self-sufficient. However, Jonathan was just trying to be nice, so there was no reason to take his head off.

"There was also a rather persistent young gentleman here to see you earlier. However, since you weren't home, I told him I'd tell you he stopped by and sent him away. He even tried to sneak past me." Jonathan sniffed in disdain.

"He's fine, Jonathan, he's just a friend from school." There was a very small list of young gentlemen that Alex knew and only one who would attempt to sneak by the doorman. Peter really must have been worried about her, but how did he know where she lived? He had said something about tracking her cell phone too, which was a conversation they were going to have to have.

By the time got to her apartment, she was bubbling with rage. She stabbed Peter's contact picture with more force than necessary and put her phone to her ear. The call was answered almost immediately, though Peter was apparently out of breath because he didn't say anything right away. There was also the sound of water somewhere in the background, maybe he had been in the shower?

"Alexandra, where have you been? You dropped off the face of the earth after sending me a cryptic text. I stopped by your apartment and you weren't there, the doorman wouldn't tell me where you had gone. I almost called the cops!" Peter rambled.

"Funny, Peter, I don't remember you being my keeper," Alex's voice was a cold as ice as she kicked off her heels. She noticed that her window was open, letting some cooler air into the apartment. She could have sworn it that she had closed it before she left.

"You texted me!" Peter's voice climbed a couple octaves.

"Just as a precaution, it's a girl thing. I should have just texted Monica," Alex grumbled as she walked over to the window.

It was still storming pretty heavily now and she didn't want anything in the apartment getting wet. There was a little fumbling as she pinned the phone between her shoulder and cheek as she reached between the curtains to push the window closed. There, on the other side of the glass was Peter Park, wet and looking rather sheepish.

"Jesus Christ!" Alex stumbled backward, the phone falling onto the floor. He was very lucky that she didn't carry a gun or he would have had to attempt to dodge a bullet on her tiny fire escape.

"Most people just go with Peter," he gave her a smile as he hung up the call. "Can you let me in? I'm starting to grow mildew out here."

"What the hell are you doing out there?" Alex's voice was a little shaky, though now probably because of anger.

"Okay, maybe this wasn't my best thought out plan," Peter admitted, pushing wet hair out of his face, "but I panicked when you wouldn't answer your phone and I couldn't get its GPS location. You really should get someone to give that doorman a raise, by the way, he was rather forceful, but still polite with me."

Alex huffed, but he looked so pathetic out there bent at the waist to look in the window and dripping wet hair, that she had to let him in. It took her a little time to get the screen up, but finally Peter slithered into the apartment. Alex directed him to the bathroom, so he didn't drip all over the place, before lowering the screen and closing the window. Luckily, there was a clean towel in the closet, even though she hadn't done laundry in weeks, and she tossed it at Peter before she started to change out of her interview clothing.

"So, where exactly were you today that blocked cell phone signals and made you worried enough to text me?" Peter called from the bathroom. Alex heard wet clothes hitting the tiles and prayed that he wouldn't walk out in just the towel.

"It's for this extra credit assignment I'm doing for Warren. I wasn't exactly sure what I was getting into. I never intended you to track my cell phone. How can you even do that?" Alex called as she tugged on a hoodie and a pair of yoga pants.

"I'm Spider-man," Peter said, waiting out of the bathroom towel drying his hair. As if to make his point, he was wearing his suit, well the bottom half of it. He was really only using it as a pair of pants, the rest scrunched up around his waist to show a lot of ab muscles.

"There's a drier down in the basement, if you want me to take your stuff down," Alex offered. "However, you're going to have to supply the dollar."

"I don't think I have a dollar on me," Peter shrugged. "You're doing extra credit for Warren? Since when? I wasn't offered extra credit."

"I would have told you all about it, if you would have talked to me the past couple days instead of acting like I had the plague." Alex pointed out. "And since when are you planning on going to London? You didn't think that you might need to mention that to your lab partner?"

"I thought we weren't friends?" Peter countered as he perched on the edge of the battered trunk that was her coffee table, a small smile on his face. "It's just an application and even if I do get selected, I wouldn't leave until next semester. We wouldn't be lab partners anymore. How do you know the head of the anti-vigilante division of the NYPD?"

"Michael had the misfortune of being the officer on duty when I had some issues last year and he just can't seem to get away from me," Alex shrugged, jumping up onto the kitchen counter. "Are we still having dinner with your Aunt tonight?"

"She has a shift at the hospital today, so I figured we could get pizza or something so she doesn't have to cook and we can get some work done on that project. Though apparently you have extra credit…" Peter trailed off, dropping the towel and picking up the notebook on the table. "What's all this?"

"None of your business," Alex jumped down and snatched the notebook out of his hand. "And for some reason Professor Warren really doesn't like you, so that's probably why you weren't offered an extra credit assignment."

"He really didn't like you either, until recently," Peter pointed out.

He had a point, but Alex wasn't going to tell him that. Whatever the reason for Warren's sudden interest and like of her was, it was helpful. There is that whole saying about not looking a gift horse in the mouth. Still, maybe on Monday she would stop by office hours and see if he would give her any more details about what they were working on, exactly. While she was fascinated by Harry, there were a thousand different biochemical avenues that his case could do down, and she should probably figure out which one.

"There was another reason I stopped by your place," Peter said as he looked up at her, hair drying at erratic angles on his head.

"You don't say," Alex rolled her eyes as she sat down on the couch.

"Have you heard about the attacks on scientists? Their apartment's being trashed, as if a wild animal was in there?" Peter leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees while Alex nodded. "When I couldn't get a hold of you, I was worried whatever it was got to you, so I came by to check out your place. While it was dirty enough that someone may have ransacked it, there were no scratch marks. Then you called and here we are."

"Since you're investigating, I'm guessing it isn't really a wild animal being set loose by like PETA to protest animal testing?" Alex was a little touched that Peter was so worried he had come to check up on her, even though it was ridiculous.

"No, no, I've caught glimpses of him and if I didn't know better, I'd say it was a werewolf," Peter sighed. "However, it wasn't a completely selfless reason I stopped by, I wanted to make sure that you haven't told anyone at Stark Tower about me."

"Why doesn't anyone at Stark Tower know about you? I mean, you guys are in the same line of work." Alex really hadn't given any thought to the idea, but shouldn't the Avengers be recruiting Peter?

"Because I draw the line at aliens," Peter laughed before turning serious. "I was in New York for the battle, with those things pouring from the sky. There was nothing I could do and honestly I want no part of that. Besides, someone had to take care of the smaller threats while the Avengers are off saving the world."

"I'd be even more worried about your mental state if you hadn't been scared by that," Alex smiled. "I mean, you're just a scientist in spandex. Aliens are a bit above your pay grade."

"I'm not just an inventor, I have a few more tricks up my sleeve, but I would have been totally out of my depth." Peter laughed as he got up and stretched.

"Is that so?" Alex raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue.

Before Peter answered, a ringing phone can be heard from the bathroom. Alex hopped up and grabbed it out of the soaking wet jeans Peter had thrown over the tub. Peter was right behind her and his face fell when he looked at the readout.

"Another scientist apartment was just called into 9-1-1." Peter was moving toward the window before the words were out of his mouth. "If I get there first, maybe I can find out what this guy is after."

"Peter wait a-" Alex didn't even get to finish the statement before he was out of the window and perched on the railing of her fire escape.

"I'll call you later about dinner," Peter called before he vaulted over the railing and fell out of sight.

"Parker," Alex screamed as she scrambled out of the window. Gripping onto the railing, Alex looked over, rain be damned. There was not a splattered lab partner on the ground, in fact, there was nothing in the alley. She heard his laughter and turned her head in time to see a streak of full suited up Spider-Man swing around the building. Alex remembered the white substance that he used when fighting, was it webbing? Damn it, she was curious now.

Slamming the window shut, Alex stripped off again as she was once again soaked and collapsed on the couch, closing her eyes. It had been one hell of a day and it wasn't even noon. She was tired. Her phone buzzed, a text from Jake asking her about what dates would be good for his trip to the Big Apple. It was just a jumble of letters and Alex couldn't even figure out a good reply. So she just closed out of the message.

All Alex wanted was a nice long rest. No college to worry about, no vigilantes or superheroes, just for everything to stop. For a second her finger hovered over Sam's contact picture, for him to tell her everything was alright, to come over and talk with her. However, she couldn't bring herself to make the call. She scrolled down and got to Steve's number, the one she should have called the moment that she got James's voicemail. Once again, she couldn't bring herself to do it.

Instead, she turned on her side and listened to James's voicemail again and again.


	12. Chapter 12

Alex was surprised how close Peter lived to the Malone's as she followed Google Maps to the address that he had texted her. Peter, due to his sudden and unexplained departure that afternoon, had left his clothes in her bathroom so Alex had washed and dried them when she did her own laundry. After her little pity party on the couch, she decided that the easiest thing to do to make herself feel better was clean the apartment. Once she started, she couldn't stop, and when she left everything was spotless. Her heart still ached, but she did feel a little calmer.

The Parker house was a rather charming row house, practical in a neighborhood as crowded as Queens. Alex made sure she had the right address before mounting the steps and pressing the doorbell. She could see movement through the glass door, but it took a moment before it was opened.

"Oh, hello. You must be Alex," the woman at the door said with a kind smile, wiping her hands on a dish towel. "Peter has told me so much about you. Please, come in."

"And you must be Aunt May, it's nice to meet you." Alex gave her best farm girl smile as she walked inside. "Peter said that you were working at the hospital today, I hope us being here isn't too much trouble. I brought some wine to go with dinner."

Aunt May was about four inches shorter than Alex, with brown hair streaked with grey, and soft brown eyes. There was some family resemblance between her and Peter, mostly in the eyes, and Alex liked May instantly. Without even trying, she had made Alex feel safe and comfortable, which was no small feat these days. May had to be an excellent nurse.

"Oh, not at all dear," May laughed as she accepted the bottle of wine. "Peter said he wanted to order in, but spaghetti and meatballs isn't all that hard to make. This wine will go perfectly with it. Peter is finishing something up in his room, why don't you just go up? I already called up to let him know you were here, but apparently I'm chopped liver. Dinner will be ready soon."

Alex gave her a smile before excusing herself and heading up the narrow staircase. It wasn't hard to figure out which room was Peter's, it was the one with the door closed. She knocked. There was some shuffling, a crash, some cursing, and then the door opened a crack to reveal a very flustered Peter Parker.

"Harper, hey, hi, right, we were supposed to work on the project tonight," Peter said, looking up and down the hallway as if he hadn't expected her at all.

"Everything alright in there?" Alex asked with a board grin, tilting her head to the side. "I hope I didn't interrupt anything?"

"What? No, no of course not. Just…give me a second," Peter closed the door and then opened it again, "Please."

Alex shook her head as she stood in the darken hallway after the door closed again, taking a minute to look at the family photos that were hung on the wall. There was Peter from chubby cheeked child to lanky teenager and then a well-proportioned adult. Aunt May didn't go through as dramatic a transformation, but one did happen, along with a man that Alex had to assume was Peter's uncle. Once again she wondered what happened to Peter's parents, even though it really wasn't her place to ask such a painful question, she couldn't help but be curious.

"Alright, come on in," Peter said as he threw the door open all the way, smiling. "Sorry about that, but it was a bit of a mess."

"And you've cleaned?" Alex asked as she walked into the chaos that was Peter's bedroom. The bed was made, which was probably what he had been doing while she waited in the hallway. That was the only organized and clean area in the whole cramped room. Papers, books, and piles of clothing were everywhere. Then again, Alex hadn't exactly been keeping her apartment clean recently, so who was she to judge.

"So, this midterm project, have you even looked at it yet? Because, I'm going to be honest with you, I might have lost the paper," Peter plopped down on his desk chair and indicated that Alex was welcome to the bed.

"I've looked over the instructions like…once? I know that there is a paper that needs to be written and raw data that we need to run through…something?" Alex dropped her backpack and reached into it for her binder, pulling out Peter's shirt and jeans. "You forgot these earlier, by the way."

"Right, sorry," Peter took the clothes and after digging a paper out of the jeans pocket, he tossed them into a hamper across the room. "This is for you, by the way. I meant to give it to you earlier. I hope the ink hasn't run too badly."

"What is it?" Alex asked as she took the slip of paper and was able to read a pretty badly smudged phone number. "Are you trying to set me up with a date or with a therapist?"

"While you probably need both, neither. There was this girl posting flyers at the student union, apparently she needs some cash and fluent in Russian. She seemed cool and I know you're stressed about that class so," Peter shrugged as he rummaged for his biochemistry notebook. "The paper part of this project shouldn't be too much of a problem, but running all this data, we're going to need some time with the specialized computers in the lab."

"I'll look into getting us some dedicated time," Alex quickly braided her hair as she looked over the assignment sheet. "We can get most of this paper done without even looking at the data. The introduction and lit review sections should be a piece of cake, and we can probably a bit of the method section done as well."

"Except if we miss even a period, Warren is going to dock us the maximum number of points," Peter sighed as he grabbed a pen and started scribbling notes. "So, how do you want to divide this up?"

Over the next half an hour, they carefully read through the project, decided on a game plan, and divided up the work. Alex was actually starting to feel that this assignment might not be too painful, if they stayed on top of it. Peter even started to make an outline when Alex got off the bed to stretch, coming to look over his shoulder while his fingers flew over the keyboard. Her eyes landing on a framed picture to the right of the monitor, a pretty blonde smiling at something out of the shot.

"Girlfriend?" Alex asked as she picked up the frame. Peter has never mentioned that he was dating, but Alex also had never asked. Maybe it was a long distance relationship? High School sweethearts that went to different colleges?

"Ah," Peter's eyes slid away from the screen and then back at the computer, though his fingers didn't start moving again. "She used to be."

There was something in the way that Peter spoke, the tone of his voice and the articulation of the words that made Alex's heart drop. The girl in the picture, whoever she was, had died. Peter didn't have to say anything else for her to know that. Alex wanted to ask so many things, but all of them were completely insensitive. Instead, she studied the picture, the wide smile and carefree attitude. Her heart ached for Peter. She knew James was still alive, he was calling her and she could still hear his voice. He wasn't gone forever, well in a permanent sense at least. Peter didn't have that burden, whether it was a blessing or a curse.

"What was her name?" Alex set the picture frame down, her hand gripping onto the back of the chair as a sign of being there for him.

"Gwen," Peter's voice was so soft, Alex barely heard him. "Her name was Gwen."

Peter smiled a little as he looked at the picture, a finger reaching out to trace the outline of Gwen's face. He had loved her, a lot. It was written on every line of his body and the way tears welled up a little in the corner of his eyes. Alex understood that feeling well, the ache that made it almost impossible to breathe.

"Peter!" Aunt May called, making them both jump. "Dinner is ready."

"Do you need help with anything?" Alex asked as they came down the stairs to see Aunt May set a basket of garlic bread on the table. A wave of homesickness hit Alex, which she hadn't expected. She missed family dinners at the farmhouse, the dogs fighting to get what little space there was underneath the table in case anything dropped.

"I do," May smiled as she headed back toward the kitchen. "Peter, come and help me in the kitchen. Alex is our guest and should help herself."

Peter shot Alex a look, but followed his Aunt into the kitchen. Alex sat down and started to load her plate up with pasta, salad, bread, and meatballs. Her mouth was watering from just the smell of the garlic bread. Other than when she went out with Steve, the most nutritious thing Alex had to eat at her apartment was hot pockets. It was easy to hear a whispered conversation going on in the kitchen, probably about her, but she attempted to ignore it.

"Sorry for the wait, I needed help with the cork," Aunt May said as she and Peter came back into the dining room. The blush on Peter's cheeks made it obvious the wine cork wasn't all that had been giving him grief.

"It's alright, I've just been sitting here trying not to eat all the food. It looks delicious." Alex gave Peter a knowing smile, tilting her head to the side and raising an eyebrow while he filled her wine glass. Peter just gave her a little head shake before going over to fill the rest of the glasses.

"So, Alex, tell me about yourself," Aunt May said as she sat down, ignoring Peter's groan. "What? I want to know about your friends. You rarely bring them over to the house."

Over a very delicious meal, Alex gave Aunt May the parent approved version of her past. It wasn't as exciting without the motorcycle gang, string of criminal ex-boyfriends, and all the other torrid things she had done in her youth, but May looked intrigued and asked questions now and again. May even told some stories of her own from the hospital where she worked.

"I've always told myself that I really should take a basic first aid course," Alex said as she helped herself to another helping of food. "I took a course back when I was a Girl Scout for a badge, but I don't really remember much and I have a lot of clumsy friends."

"I would be more than happy to teach you a thing or two. These days, with Peter out of the house so much, I'm always trying to find something to keep busy." Aunt May laughed. "But maybe you should tell your friends to be a bit more careful."

Alex and Peter shared a look over their wine glasses, but chose to keep their comments to themselves. She hadn't meant Peter specifically, in fact, though the shoes probably felt extremely well. No, it was the face of the dead girl the year before had prompted the statement, but it was still fun to make Peter squirm a bit. Even if May knew that he was Spider-Man, which was not a conversation to have over meatballs, Alex doubted that Peter told her everything about his time crime-fighting.

"Honestly, Peter, I don't know what I'm going to do when you move out." May patted his hand before taking starting to collect the dirty dishes. "I've spent so long looking after you, it's basically been another full-time job."

"You're going to be just fine," Peter laughed. "You're going to go to loads of parties and on hot dates and forget all about me. I'll be getting snapchats of you dancing on top of tables and doing body shots."

"Snap what?" Aunt May looked confused at the door of the kitchen, looking from Alex to Peter. They both broke out laughing.

"It's an app," Peter explained as he helped clean up the table while Alex finished up her second plate of food.

Alex wondered if Peter had told Aunt May about the application for the foreign exchange program or not. They only had each other and seemed very open with one another, but Alex also knew how hard it was to tell your family something that you knew they weren't going to support. When she was accepted to NYU and her parents told her they weren't comfortable with her going to New York, Alex kind of just left the house one day with her things and gave them a call from the airport.

Peter was still attempting to explain what Snapchat was when they returned to the dining room, carrying plates of chocolate cake. After topping up their wine glasses, explanation resumed, and by the end of their meal they had taken a couple pictures together with filters. They had to stop when one of the filters made them look as if they were in a Funhouse mirror and Aunt May laughed so hard she started crying.

"Okay, okay," Peter wiped his own eyes and put his own phone away. "We have to finish a few more things for this assignment before it gets too late."

"Is this that Professor that's giving you a hard time?" Aunt May's voice had a little bite as she finished cleaning up the dining room. "Do I have to call and speak with him?"

"You know," Peter said as he ate the last piece of his cake with his fingers, "that might not be a bad idea."

"Peter, really!" May chided before turning to Alex. "I swear that he had manners as a child. I don't know where he gets this from. I'm sure your boyfriend isn't such a slob."

"Aunt May," Peter groaned, mouth full of chocolate cake and some icing on his lips.

"I don't have a boyfriend and my previous relationships have left a lot to be desired in terms of manners," Alex gave May a smile. There was something kind of endearing about adults embarrassing their children, especially when it was someone else getting embarrassed.

"Oh, did you hear that Peter? She's single." Aunt May gave him a look before disappearing into the kitchen.

"We're never speaking about this ever again." Peter was practically pink, rubbing his hand over his face. "Never. Those last couple minutes never happened."

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Parker." Alex smiled brightly before she got to her feet.

"Thank you," Peter finished his wine.

"Sure thing." Alex gave him a pat on the shoulder as she got up from her chair. "I totally won't bring up the fact that your aunt basically just asked me out on your behalf to benefit me in some way in the future. The thought never even crossed my mind."

Peter groaned as he slid to his feet and started up the stairs. Honestly, Alex was a little flattered that Aunt May deemed her worthy of Peter's affections. She seemed very protective and Alex didn't exactly look like the girl next door. Not like Gwen, who Peter had obviously been in love with. Maybe May was desperate for Peter to be happy in whatever form he could find.

They worked for another couple hours before they really couldn't get any further on the project without the data and doing some research. Both of them were also dead tired and had spent the last half hour complaining about everything they had to do instead of actually doing it. As Alex started to pack up, she hoped that the alcohol and the mental strain she would be able to sleep once she got home.

"I should probably get going," Alex said as she got to her feet and stretched. "I would hate to overstay my welcome."

"I'll walk you home," Peter jumped to his feet in some fluid movement, not a pop or a crack from his joints. Apparently doing acrobatic routines that would make Cirque du Soleil jealous while fighting crime made him immune to the same joint problems everyone else had.

"You don't need to do that." Alex laughed as she headed for the bedroom door. "It's only a couple of blocks to the subway station and it's just a hop, skip, and jump to my apartment. No need for you to waste an hour or so of your life."

"Hop, skip, and a jump? That's adorable and very Midwest of you," Peter pulled on a hoodie and followed her down the stairs. "Besides, I can get you home a lot faster than the subway, with a much better view of the city."

"I mean, we're still due for that conversation about...well...you know," Alex pointed out, trailing off when Aunt May got off the couch and walked over to them.

"There is a container of chocolate cake on the kitchen counter for you," May said with a smile. "It was nice to meet you, though I have to admit, you're not what I expected. When Peter talked about his brilliant lab partner I was thinking of someone more…"

"Normal? Not tattooed and had more metal in her ears that some common household appliances? Yeah, I get that a lot," Alex laughed, leaning against the banister while Peter tugged on his shoes. "And between the two of us, Peter is the brilliant one. I'm copying his notes half the time."

"That's only because you're asleep half the time," Peter pointed out. "Come on, we'll head out the back door so you can collect that cake."

Peter kissed Aunt May on the cheek before leading Alex through the house and out the back door, swiping the cake on the way. It actually felt like an autumn night, the air cold and crisp, as they walked into the postage stamp backyard. Instead of heading out of the gate, Peter waved Alex over to a little shed.

"How do you work like this?" Alex asked as they stepped into what was obviously a small workshop, taking in the chaos around her.

"I've been kind of busy recently, so housekeeping hasn't been my main priority," Peter rubbed the back of his neck as Alex pushed some things on the work table around to get a better look.

"I feel like even if you had all the time in the world, it would still look like this," Alex laughed.

"Okay, that's true, but also rude," Peter walked over and sat down on his little red stool, wheeling over to whatever he was working on underneath a illuminated magnifying glass.

Alex realized that the workshop was a visual representation of Peter's brain, scattered and crowded, but sprinkled with brilliance and all working toward a purpose. The current purpose was new wristlets that seemed to hold his webbing material and it seemed like a very complex operation. They were delicate little devices, the small mechanisms the reason he had to work on them underneath magnification. Delicate mechanical operations were not Alex's forte, but she bet Monica would be drooling at the mouth to see the interworking on Peter's gear.

"Why are you making a new set?" Alex asked as she leaned in closer so she could watch him work.

"These ones," Peter flashed his wrists to show his current set, "are good, but I am trying to improve the accuracy and holding capacity. Right now, they can only hold two canisters, which puts me in a sticky situation for a long battle or a lot of swinging. I want to be able to carry up to five canisters, as well as adding a few other tricks and upgrades. Unfortunately, between crime and school work, it's been slow going."

"You'd think criminals would be more conscious of your GPA." Alex watched fascinated as Peter picked up a small screwdriver and tightened something. She had a hard time understanding how such a clumsy man could do such delicate work.

"They are so inconsiderate sometimes," Peter laughed softly, not looking away from his work.

"So," Alex turned around to study the rest of the little bits in the shed, "when are we going to talk about how you became a superhero? Get sick of kids making fun of you for taking gymnastics so you started fighting crime?"

"It's a long story," Peter sighed as he traded out the screwdriver for a tiny spray can of something, "but the short version is that I got bit by a radioactive spider and now I have super powers."

"Please tell me that you're joking," Alex said with a small laugh.

Peter just looked up at her and gave a little shake of his head. Alex didn't know how to process that information. It just sparked so many questions. The first question being where the hell did he run into a radioactive spider. This was New York, and it wasn't the cleanest city in the world, but radioactive spider was a little out there. Plague ridden rat, she would be able to believe. The second question was more of her scientific mind at work, how did a spider bite give him powers and not just kill him?

"Well, that just reinforces my rule of never trusting those eight legged, eight eyed bastards," Alex finally said with a shrug. "Like, who needs that many legs and eyes? It's excessive."

Peter stopped working and looked up at her, surprise written all over his face. Alex just tilted her head a little and raised an eyebrow, wondering why her distrust of spiders was so surprising. It was like God designed them to be evil. Then Peter just started laughing, pushing away from his work and running his hands through his hair.

"What about you?" Peter asked as he got up, apparently no longer needing something to do with his hands, and turned off the light.

"What about me?" Alex had no idea what he was talking about. "Last time I checked, being able to stand you wasn't a superpower. Unless you're talking about walking in heels and a short dress?. It's not exactly scaling walls."

"I mean, depending on who you ask, both are super powers," Peter pointed out as he locked up the shed, "but what I meant was you said 'not again' when you unmasked me. Do you make it a point of ruining people's secret identities? If so, I'm sure that NYPD would love to give you a job."

"No, but I have a bad habit of finding them out, without meaning to. Honestly, the less I have to do with superheroes, the better."

"You work at Stark Industries, under Dr. Banner. That's like an alcoholic walking into a bar and just sitting there looking at the bottles," Peter shook his head. "You're a very strange woman, Alexandra Harper. Honestly, I'm starting to worry about your overall sanity."

"Says the man who just told me he was bitten by a radioactive spider and, instead of going to a hospital, decided to fight crime in spandex instead," Alex laughed. She understood where Peter was coming from, but she really and truly didn't want anything to do with superheroes or Hydra. Stark Industries was purely for her career, not because she wanted to be around the Avengers. Why couldn't people separate the two? Hundred of people worked for Stark Industries who never even laid eyes on the Avengers.

"It's…it is a little bit more complicated than that," Peter sighed as they got to the front of the house. "I'm going to run in and see if Aunt May needs me to pick anything up before we head out. Give me a second."

Alex waited at the bottom of the porch steps as Peter slip back inside. There was the flash from the television, but Aunt May must have been asleep or laying down on the couch since Alex couldn't see her head. Peter's face softened and he pulled the blanket from the back of the couch and presumably draped it over her. It was all very sweet. Alex wondered why Peter wanted to go to London when it was obvious he was devoted to his aunt.

"Come on, let's get going," Peter said as he came back out, locking the door behind him. "It's freezing out."

"You don't have to walk me, you know," Alex went to playfully punch Peter's shoulder. Peter's hand shot out and grabbed onto her wrist. It wasn't painful, but it stopped her from touching him. They looked at each other in shock.

"Sorry, sorry, quick reflexes," Peter let go of her just as quickly and looked embarrassed. "It's part of my powers, I can kind of sense things coming at me."

"Like…spider senses?" Alex tried to recover from her shock. Even though she knew he was Spider-man, it was easy to forget that he even had powers.

"Like what?" Peter asked, head tilted to the side.

"Well, whenever something is about to happen, you said you know beforehand. Like you sense it," Alex explained, though it was difficult to get out and she felt her cheeks heating up. "You're Spider-man, you have these senses, so their spider senses…spidey senses…Oh, never mind."

"Spidey senses…I kind of like it," Peter gave her a crooked smile as they walked toward the subway, "but don't ever say that in front of anyone else, though."

"Obviously," Alex smiled giving his shoulder a little shove, which he allowed this time. Who the hell else was she going to say it to? No one else knew that Peter was Spider-Man, but there was no reason arguing with him about it.

"I really like your aunt, but the way. She reminds me a bit of my mom, without the bite."

"I can't even imagine your mother," Peter laughed as they walked toward the subway station. "Like all I see is a carbon copy of you with like an apron and a rolling pin. It's a little disturbing."

"Grace Ann Harper is shorter than I am, a bit wider, has blonde hair streaked with grey, and a shotgun beside the back door that she can hit a groundhog with at 500 feet without even breaking a sweat," Alex explained with a smile. Again, a wave of unexpected homesickness washed over her. The small town and farm had always felt so stifling to her as a child, but it had really let her get herself together during the summer.

"Remind me not to stand at your back door," Peter smiled as he dug his cell phone out of his pocket, frowning at the screen. "Hey, there is something I have to do…"

"Okay, that's fine. Like I said, you don't need to walk me," Alex didn't like the serious look on Peter's face. "Is something wrong?"

"Oh, there might be a small bank robbery that I need to stop, nothing major," Peter said as if he was mentioning stopping by to let a friend's dog out. "I can't let you walk home alone, thought, not after the other night. I'm just going to take you with me and leave you somewhere safe while I deal with this. It's no big deal."

"Excuse me? Are you insane?" Alex stopped walking, making Peter look at her. "How do you even know that there is a bank robbery happening?"

"I get the police updates on my phone." Peter put his arm around her shoulder, starting to move her down the sidewalk again.

"If the police know about it, why not just let them handle it?" Alex asked, though she let herself be dragged along.

"I don't have time to explain right now, but the weapons these guys are using are bad news bears. I'm better equipped to take care of it than the boys in blue." Peter looked around to see if anyone else was on the sidewalk. "You're going to be so mad about this."

Before Alex could say anything else, Peter picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. There was no time to even scream before they were catapulting up into the air. Her stomach settled in her mouth, but she stayed very still. From what she could see, they were suddenly very high off the ground and she didn't want to know what it felt like to be free falling toward the pavement. The whole experience was like being on the worst rollercoaster Alex could imagine without a seatbelt, rising and falling at inconsistent intervals.

Finally, the ride stopped and Alex opened her eyes to see that she was on the solid ground of a roof. Peter set Alex down softly, but her limbs were shaking so badly that she grabbed onto his neck to keep herself upright.

"You're choking me," Peter croaked as he pried her arms off his neck.

"Are you insane?" Alex finally got out, not sure how she was standing or where in the city she was. Looking for a landmark, her eyes focused on Stark Tower glowing in the distance. They somehow had gotten to Upper Manhattan in a matter of moments. The Hudson River was very close, but that still didn't make Alex feel as if she had any idea what was going on.

"You can yell at me later." Peter stripped out of his clothes in record speed.

Alex wasn't sure if she should watch him or look away, even though it was obvious that he had his suit on underneath his t-shirt and jeans. Was he ever not wearing that thing? It had to smell if that was the case, spandex was not a breathable material. Before she could even form any these thoughts into a question, Peter was tugged on his mask from his back pocket of his jeans, threw all the clothes at Alex, and leaping off the edge of the building.

It took Alex a couple heartbeats to figure out what happened, Peter's crumpled clothes in her arms, blinking up at the night sky. Curiosity finally pulled her over to the side of the roof to take in the scene below. There was a Chase Bank on the corner, surrounded by cop cars and officers trying to block off the area from bystanders. Peter was nowhere to be seen, but that was to be expected.

Now that Alex's stomach was settling back in it's appropriate position, she was cold and pissed. How dare Peter just pick her up like a sack of flour and drag her wherever he saw fit. Not only that, he had thrown his clothes at her! Alex wanted to drop them, but she couldn't bring herself to do it, so she folded them angrily instead. When Peter got back, she was going to tell him exactly what she thought about Spider-Man.

The sound of gunshots rang out and people down on the street screamed. Alex felt as if ice water had been dropped over her and the clothes slipped out of her fingers. She blinked and Nadia was pointing a gun at her, smiling as she pulled the trigger. It was a year ago, but all that fear and adrenaline and hate was coursing through her body as if she was right there.

The next time Alex was aware of herself, whatever happened down at the bank was over. A couple of officers were walking the supposed criminals out of the bank, hands behind their back, and white webbing all over their clothes. There were a couple unmarked cars among the flashing lights and even though she was far away, Alex could have sworn she saw Officer Sousa down on the sidewalk. How long had she just been standing there?

"It was all really excessive. Like, first of all, who robs banks with electric powered ray guns, which were thankfully malfunctioning, and hand grenades? Seriously?" Peter's voice came behind her, obviously in the middle of a rant she hadn't heard any of.

Alex spun around to see Peter pacing behind her, still in his suit, though he had pulled the mask off. Black soot was covering the spandex, which meant that at least one of the grenades had probably gone off, and there was a good sized rip in the right shoulder. Peter opened his mouth to say something else, but stopped when he saw her expression.

"Is everything okay?" Peter walked over, putting his hands on her shoulders and held on a little tighter when he felt her trembling. "I know that swinging isn't for everyone, especially when you aren't used to it, but I thought you'd be fine. Oh, wait, are you scared of heights? I didn't even think about that. Sorry, if you are, I mean, I'll keep that in mind for the future. Not that I think I'll just throw you over my shoulder again in the future, as I think you might punch me, but these things are good to know. Alright, I'm really starting to get worried because you haven't told me to shut up."

"How long were you down there?" Alex asked, trying to figure out how much time she had lost.

"Oh, maybe fifteen to twenty minutes, at the most." Peter was gently rubbing her arms, speaking softly, concern written all over his face. "Why?"

"I…I dropped your clothes," Alex looked down at the pile on the edge of the roof. "Sorry about that."

"Don't worry about it." Peter tilted his head to the side. Alex just gave him a little head shake of not now he let go of her and picked the items in question up.

"We should probably get out of here before the police start looking for you." Alex did not feel like explaining, even if she could explain this new fun thing her mind was doing. She felt numb and hollow and was having a hard time pulling herself back into reality, even now.

"You're not wrong. Come on, I'll give you a piggyback swing back home." Peter still looked extremely concerned, but there was a small smile on his face.

"Speaking of which, if you try to throw me over your shoulder like that again, I will break every one of your fingers until they light up like the little radioactive glow sticks that they are," Alex said, managing a shaky smile.

Peter watched her for a second longer before pulling on his clothes, tucking his mask into his back pocket. After getting everything situated, Peter crouched down and Alex got onto his back. There was some adjusting from Peter, mostly loosening the grip on his neck and shifting her legs on his hips. As Alex didn't want to fall to her death, she didn't make too many sounds of protest.

"I don't know if it's going to be better for you with your eyes open or closed, but we're about to jump," Peter said over his shoulder.

Before Alex could make a decision of what would be best, Peter ran and leapt off the roof. After getting used to the free falling aspect of it, which made her reflexively made her close her eyes, Alex enjoyed watching the city fly by around her. It took almost no time for Peter to be gently setting Alex down in an alley near her building.

"I could have just walked home," Alex said as they both adjusted their clothes and walked out onto the sidewalk. It probably looked suspect to anyone who saw them appear, faces flushed and clothes askew.

"You get in trouble when you're with a group of friends. I'm not going to let you out on your own," Peter laughed.

Alex was too tired to argue as she noticed that there were a number of cop cars outside the building. Fear gripped her and Alex started running toward the front door. What if something happened to Monica? Peter didn't ask any questions, just ran with her and they busted into the lobby.

"Miss Harper, oh thank god you weren't in your apartment. I didn't see you come in, but I was so worried I had missed you and…" Henry was explained in a hurried voice as he came over to Alex and Peter. "Oh, I'm so glad you're alright."

"What happened? Is Monica alright?" Alex asked in just as hurried a voice, speaking over the older man.

"Miss LeBlanc? She's fine, other than being worried about you." Henry seemed confused by the question.

"Why would she be worried about Alex?" Peter asked, the only one not completely panicked at the moment.

"Because it looks like a wild animal tore her apartment to shreds. It's a mess and we have no idea who did it," Henry explained, looking more worried than Alex had ever seen him. "I have no idea what could do something like that. It's almost supernatural."


End file.
